In Between the Action
by Thalius
Summary: Various prompts and drabbles set around the Uncharted canon.
1. Laundry and Pencils

**Prompt:** **Elena does the laundry, and Nate doesn't know how to follow instructions.**

She had her headphones on at near full-blast while she sorted their laundry, half-heartedly dancing as she tossed Nate's dusty jeans into the dark pile. Even if he's home all day, translating old books for the local university, he always managed to cover himself in cobwebs and dust and dirt by the end of the day. And no matter how many time she washed his clothes, she could never really get the smell of old stone and grit and pencil lead completely out of the fabric.

When she finished sorting, she tossed a load into the washer and cranked on the water. She figures she has about an hour before the cycle completed itself—good. Enough time to get some more research done on the unrest happening in Lebanon.

She was almost out of the basement when she heard an awful mechanical screeching, and ran back down the steps, pulling her earbuds from her ears and wincing at the sound. _Goddamnit, he better not have ruined another washing machine. I told him to take everything out of his pockets—_

She immediately turned off the washer, the source of the horrible noise, and yanked open the lid, peering in.

A few centimetres of water had settled in the basin, along with some foamy blue detergent, but it had been clearly jammed by something— _again._ She grabbed a basket and tossed the sopping clothes out of the washer, and inspected the inside tub of the machine.

"I _knew_ it." A blue HB pencil was wedged into one of the small holes in the basin, stopping it from agitating—and judging by all the noise it had been making, God knew what else had fallen from his pockets and down into the guts of the washer. Old coins, crumpled paper, eraser stubs, stones he picked up from the beach... _"Nate!"_

She heard a thud of feet from above as he sat up from the living room couch, and she heard him stop at the top of the basement stairs. "Yeah?"

"How many goddamn times have I told you not to leave shit in your pockets?" she called back.

There was a long pause of silence, then a guilty clearing of his throat. "Maybe I can fix the washer this time," he finally said, voice sheepish.

She sighed, heading to the bottom of the stairs to look up at him. "Or maybe I'll take the day and we can go shopping for _another_ washing machine." _I'm gonna have to start a forensic pat-down of all his laundry before getting it anywhere close to a washer._

He scratched at his hair, which was mussed from him laying on the couch, probably watching TV—she'd heard him yelling at a history program earlier, telling the overly-tanned faux-historians on the screen about just how _wrong_ they were in describing mid-fourteenth-century Iranian architecture.

"I got enough money from my last job," he said, squinting, as if trying to visualise the raw cash he stashed under the floorboards of his small office. "We should be fine."

Her music was still blaring from the buds dangling from her shirt, and she shut it off with a sigh. "Well put on your shoes, then, because I don't have any clean underwear for tomorrow."

"Is that really an emergen—"

 _"_ _Nate."_

"Putting my shoes on!" he called, heading for the front hall.

Elena huffed, grinned at his dumb comment, and jogged up the stairs. Shopping with Nate was always an experience—he had to touch everything, like smearing fingerprints on something allowed him to gain a deeper understand of whatever it was he was touching. She'd seen many an incredulous salesmen go red with irritation when they saw him marking up their shiny product, all the while Nate oblivious to anything except what he was inspecting. At least they weren't shopping for mattresses—they'd been kicked out of more than one department store for the things he did to the display bedding.

 _More entertaining than research, at least._


	2. Meeting the Parents

**Prompt: In which Nate meets Elena's parents for the first time, but not how Elena would have liked.**

"Sully, don't give me that 'I'm old, I can't lift things' exc—"

"You hear me sayin' any of that, kid? It's damn heavy, that's all." He heaved their luggage out of the backseat of the car, and they shuffled towards the parking lot door of the apartment complex.

 _Good thing the apartment building has an elevator. Couldn't make it up four flights with this thing._ The thing in question happened to be a very heavy, very old ivory statue that a very wealthy client paid very much a lot of money for them to steal.

"You sure Elena won't mind this in the apartment?" Sully asked for the third time as they hauled it through the narrow back hallways and past the foyer. Luckily, the ground floor appeared to be mostly empty.

"Probably not. Only for one—ah—night," he finished, shifting his grip on the statue as he tried to press the up bottom for the elevator. Usually they practiced the whole "don't shit where you eat" adage religiously, but Sully had to sell off his apartment to finance this goddamn job and, well, they didn't have a lot of other places to hide it. It wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

"Right," Sully muttered, shuffling into the cramped elevator with Nate.

Nate set the statue down for a moment, huffing, and checked his watch. Damn. He'd missed dinner. _She made lasagna, too…_

"You got a place to store all that?" Sully asked, jerking his chin at the backpack hanging off one of Nate shoulders. It had their gloves, some rope, two .45 colts, and about seven grand in cash. Fortunately they hadn't needed the pistols, but it was always better to have them just in case.

"Yeah, a few places. Like I said, shouldn't be a problem. She knows where we went, anyway."

Sully made another doubtful grunt at that, apparently unconvinced Elena wouldn't object to stolen property hiding in their home for the night. They waited out the rest of the ride in tired silence—he was already day-dreaming about stripping off his clothes and falling into bed with Elena after their nine-hour job. He really hadn't meant to take so long, but security had been a lot heavier than what their patrol maps had shown.

A half-forgotten conversation floated into his mind as he heard the elevator ding. It felt like he was forgetting something, some important date. He frowned, trying to remember. Was it their anniversary? No, not for a few more months. No birthdays… Holidays? No. Elena was only really into Christmas, and he definitely won't ever forget that holiday with the amount of decorations she puts up. _What the hell am I forgetting? I hope it's not part of the job… goddamn, I'm tired._

They lugged the statue to the apartment door, and Nate quickly dug his keys out of his front pocket. "You can crash here for the night," he offered to Sully, who merely nodded and blinked sleepily, and Nate opened the door.

* * *

Elena tapped a rapid rhythm with her index finger on her thigh. Nate was late. Like forty-five minutes late. She knew he was on a small job, but he'd promised to be home for dinner, at the very least.

"He should be home soon," she repeated to her parents. Her mother raised a dubious eyebrow and took another sip of her wine, and her dad's only response was a polite smile.

She didn't have to sell Nate to her dad. Her father gave people the benefit of the doubt almost to a fault—no, it was her mother she had to convince how great Nate was.

Which he was. He was wonderful and charming and romantic and handsome, and she knew very well that when her life was on the line, he'd gladly lay down his to save her ass—not that she generally needed saving, but still. It was comforting to know she commanded that kind of loyalty with him.

But he was… unorthodox, that she couldn't deny. He'd never had any kind of completely legal employment, hadn't even finished high school before Sully had picked him up and started teaching him how to steal things, and Nate was a bit of an adrenaline junky. All things she had omitted to her parents when discussing him, of course, but she knew her mother would latch onto his flaws rather than his strengths, as she did with every guy Elena dated.

She heard the keys jingling in the door and covered her sigh of relief with a small cough. "There he is," she said, smiling.

Her dad smiled back. "I'll finally be able to put a face to all the crazy stories you've told us."

Crazy. Yeah. The heavily edited, PG-rated versions of only a few of their adventures that she'd managed to tell them. As much as she hated to admit it, her parents were probably the biggest pair of WASPs she'd ever met. _I wonder what Nate will think of them. Hopefully he won't take offence to my mother's "I have a doctorate and know more than you" voice she uses on everyone._

"Lena!" he called. "We're home. _Finally_. _"_

"We?" her mother repeated, her brow shooting up to her hairline. "I wasn't aware we were meeting his parents. Or is it one of his… associates that you mentioned?"

Oh god. Sully better not be with him. She hadn't really explained to him yet how to act in front of her—

"Can you hurry it along, kid? I'm about to pull muscles I didn't know I had."

 _This is bad._

She stood up, intending to give Sully a very condensed lesson on upper-middle-class etiquette—he wasn't exactly the most distinguished man she'd ever met—when Nate came into view carrying a rather large Ivory statue of what appeared to be naked woman with a lion's head.

They set it down on its side with a thump, and Nate wiped at his brow, huffing. He was covered in dirt, dust, and some other things she didn't really want to know the origin of. Then he plunked his backpack on the small kitchen table behind him, still oblivious to Elena and her very shocked parents.

"Hope you don't mind, Lena, but we don't have anywhere else to put this thing, but it shouldn't be here for more than a nigh—" He unzipped the bag and looked like he was about to pull out a gun—probably to unload and clean it—and she lunged and grabbed his arm, narrowly avoiding knocking over her glass of wine, and he stopped to look down at her.

"Nate," she said carefully, through gritted teeth. "My parents and I have been waiting for you. Where have you been?"

His eyes went wide, his jaw slack. He muttered something along the lines of "that's what I forgot", then shot a glance at Sully, who looked as awkward as Nate did, then back to Elena's parents.

"Um," he began, clearing his throat to buy some time. "Hi."

She heard her mother make that small noise in the back of her throat that she makes when she was about to talk to someone she really did not like, and Elena cringed at what was going to be a very cold, very unwelcoming response, and potentially a brutal lecture.

"What did you say your boyfriend did for a living again, Elena?"


	3. Losing It

**Prompt: Elena and Nate discuss when they lost their V-cards.**

Elena watched the ceiling fan swing lazily overhead, pushing the sweltering, soupy air around the room in a half-hearted attempt to keep their hotel room cool. They'd stripped the blankets off the bed, and neither her or Nate were wearing a stitch of clothing, but even then the heat was almost unbearable.

She looked over at Nate, frowning when her cheek touched her sweaty blond hair that was fanned out on the pillow. His eyes were closed, and he lay as close to her as possible without them actually touching. A few beads of sweat trickled down his temple, marking the soggy pillowcase underneath him.

She sighed. They had the whole weekend to themselves, but the thought of even holding hands made her cringe. Everything was so _sticky_ and _hot_.

Nate looked over at her, hearing her sigh. "I know," he said in agreement. "This sucks."

"You're sure we can't get a more expensive hotel room—y'know, with proper AC?"

"Not unless you wanna spend a few more weeks here," he replied. "I barely got enough cash for a plane ticket home. And even if I took a job I might die of heatstroke before the payout."

"I can go a few days without eating if it means being able to _move_ ," she reasoned, then shook her head. "How do people _do_ this?" Chennai was a beautiful city settled on the Eastern coast of India, and in air-conditioned buildings it was wonderful, but they weren't so fortunate as to be in one of those buildings. "How would you have sex? Make babies? Can you imagine being _pregnant_ when it's this hot?"

"I've slept with people in worse places," Nate replied. "I just… don't remember it ever being this humid."

"Oh really?" Had she not accompanied him on a few of his jobs, she would never believe half the stories he told her. But as it stood, he had a _lot_ of crazy—and _true—_ tales, and if he was willing to get himself shot or imprisoned over treasure, she had no doubt that he'd go to even further lengths to sleep with women.

"You sounds skeptical," he challenged, grinning at her.

She laughed. "Oh believe me, I'm not." Elena paused, thinking. "Now that you mention it—"

"What?"

"You never told me how you lost your virginity," she mused, rolling onto her stomach to look down at him.

"You've never told me, either."

"Yeah, but I'm sure you've got a much more interesting story than I do. So, what was it? Have sex on a church roof? Get lucky in some dingy old temple? Oh—orgy in a public pool?"

"Ha," he replied, face set in mock-seriousness. "I have a bit more class than that, thank you."

 _"_ _I've_ had sex with you in a temple before," she reminded him. "Not half bad actually—but you haven't answered my question."

He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling again. "Sorry to disappoint, but it's a pretty boring story—well, no. It's not _boring_ —Jesus, I figured it to be one of the best nights of my life—but there's no monasteries or guns or crazy stunts involved."

She propped her chin on a raised fist, wiggling a brow at him. "I still wanna hear."

"Tell me yours after and we have a deal."

"I'd shake your hand, but it's too hot for that."

He gave her a lopsided grin. "Fair enough. Well, it was just after I turned eighteen—"

 _"_ _Eighteen?"_

He frowned. "Yeah, why?"

"I just expected you'd lost it pretty early, is all."

"Thanks, I think." He huffed. "Can I continue?"

She waved a hand for him to proceed, and he nodded sagely. "Sully and I just got done finishing a job—it was a heist, I think—and we were back at the inn we were staying at. Sully bought me a beer and went off to talk to some of his friends—he always had friends in every place we stayed at—and a few minutes after he left, this girl came up to my table.

"She was _really_ pretty. Like, crazy pretty. Really dark hair, big eyes, and an amazing ass. Like I mean _ama—"_

Elena laughed. "I get it, I get it. Go on."

He smiled at her. "Well, she wanted to sit with me. I told her sure, why not, and offered to buy her a drink—with Sully's money, of course.

"She chatted me up for a while. It felt like an hour, but I dunno how long it was—she was good at talking, too, because I sure as hell wasn't contributing to the conversation a whole lot."

"A quiet Nathan Drake," Elena mused. "What a sight that must be."

He shot her a dirty look, but continued without comment. "I don't even really remember what we talked about—I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying. I got drunk pretty quick, too.

"After a few drinks she told me to meet her upstairs. At first I was gonna say no—Sully always said don't trust people who wanna meet with you totally alone—but, well… she did have a _really_ nice ass, and didn't look like she was gonna kill me.

"So I followed her upstairs, and—"

"And?" Elena prodded. He'd gone quiet, most likely for dramatic effect.

There was a giant, goofy grin plastered on his face. "And ho-ly _shit_ , did she ever pop my cherry. I had no idea what was going on, or what I was supposed to do or how it worked—"

"I find it hard to believe you'd never watched porn or looked at a dirty magazine before then," Elena interrupted.

He shrugged. "Most places Sully and I went didn't have the greatest Internet, and it's kinda awkward watching porn in an Internet cafe." She laughed at that. "I'd bought magazines, but they were just pictures. So I was pretty unclear with how it all worked out—Sully'd had a talk with me, kind of, but it was mostly along the lines of 'don't get anyone goddamn pregnant, or I'll kill you'," Nate said, imitating Sully's gravelly tones fairly well.

"So yeah—she did shit to me I'd never even known _existed_ , and we went pretty much all night. In the morning she left before I was up, and left a note saying how much fun it had been." He looked over at Elena, eyes twinkling, as they always did when he delivered the punch-line to a joke. "And that's how I lost my virginity to a hooker."

"She was a _prostitute?"_

"I hadn't known at the time, of course, but yeah. I figured it out when I walked out of my room—I saw Sully handing her a wad of cash—"

"Wait, wait." She held up her hands. "Sully _paid a hooker to have sex with you?"_ Sure, Sully technically wasn't his father, but still… Nate always rubbed him about being a dirty old man—now she had even more reason to believe it.

"I was legal, so he wouldn't get in trouble or anything," he said defensively. "Guess that's why it happened like a week after my birthday."

"I just—wow. When you say he'd do anything for you—"

Nate laughed. "It was a great birthday gift. He asked me about it afterwards, too. I told him it was the best night of my life."

"I'll bet," she murmured. "Well. You still managed to make your not-crazy story end with a twist."

Nate flipped over, lying in a similar position as her. "Now you."

She let her head plunk down on the pillow. "I'm afraid mine is _actually_ boring, not fake-boring like yours."

"I still wanna hear it."

She smiled. "Alright. First of all, I _so_ beat you with the age thing—"

"Oh yeah?"

"I was _sixteen,_ I'll have you know."

He arched a dark brow. "What would your dear Christian mother think?"

"I think she still deludes herself into thinking I'm a nun."

Nate started laughing, muffling the sound in his pillow. "Wow, is she so wrong—"

 _"_ _Very_ funny."

"It's a compliment, believe me." He leaned over and kissed her. "Man, I wish we could have sex without bursting into flames."

"I thought you wanted to hear my story?" she asked, feeling his nose skim along her throat. It did feel really good, even if she was laying in a pool of her own sweat.

"Mmmm. Maybe later," he hummed, pressing his mouth to her ear.

"We mentally shook on it."

"You didn't specify on _what time_ you had to tell me," he countered, and she shivered at his breath in her ear. The small shiver managed to actually make her feel almost cool for a moment.

"Do that again," she ordered. Another pleasurable shiver ran down her spin, and she grinned.

"You're right. Story time can wait. Get over here."


	4. Just a Kid

**Prompt: After the prison escape, Nate meets up with Sully.**

* * *

 ***SPOILER WARNING* - Spoilers in this chapter for Chapter 2 of Uncharted 4. Don't even read the first line if you haven't played yet, folks - unless you're into spoilers.**

* * *

His beer had tasted sour ever since Nate had called him, voice shaking and small, whispering into the phone that his brother was dead.

He'd never heard Nate sound so much like the kid he always called him. The usual response from Nate when there was any kind of trouble was a quick smartass remark or, less often, simple anger.

Not this time. Nate sounded afraid—something Sully hadn't heard from him before. It scared the shit out of him, too.

He made sure there was a seat waiting for him in the inn, and a spare bed upstairs. Nate was apparently flying into Costa Rica with another inmate to meet up with him. Sully'd looked him up—Rafe Adler. A shithead with wealthy parents who'd paid for an escape route from Panama. _One that didn't include keeping Nate and Sam safe, apparently._

He'd reserve judgment until he got the full story, but he already didn't like what little he knew about the kid. At least he was helping Nate to get back here. A plane from Panama to Costa Rica was a bit excessive, but they'd get here a lot quicker.

"You're nursing your beer, Sullivan."

He looked up. The man across from him raised an impatient brow. Right.

"Slow and steady," he replied, taking a small sip. "But I'm gonna have to take a few days before we do this."

The other man's eye twitched. "Excuse me?"

Sully rolled his eyes. "You heard me—and you heard the phone call I just got. I'm taking a few days." He needed to make sure Nate was okay first—he wasn't going to Colombia on a smuggling job until he knew the kid wasn't gonna do anything stupid. Well, more stupid than usual. And he'd like to take Nate with him on this one if he could—Nate was still fairly green when it came to smuggling, and the money was good. Kid needed to learn.

Barros' eye twitched again. "Aquino won't wait for you to take bereavement time, Sullivan. He needs the shipment now."

"Well he's going to have to learn how to be patient. You want my help, you'll need to wait."

Barros clenched his jaw and muttered something foul in Spanish under his breath. "How long is a few days? How many?"

"I don't know—three, four? I haven't even seen the kid yet. It depends on how he's doing." Which, by the sound of the broken, mumbled phone call they'd had fifteen minutes ago, wasn't too good.

"Three days," Barros said, glaring at him. "Any more, and Aquino will find someone else."

"That's very gracious of him."

"So? _¿Es un sí?"_

He sighed. "Yeah, _sí._ That'll have to do."

"Fine," Barros ground out, and shoved away from the table, standing up. "I'll make a call. _Gringos estúpidos."_

"Cheers," Sully replied, raising his bottle and taking a swig. Three days wasn't nearly long enough, but he was out of cash and Nate was fresh out of prison—illegally, to boot. They needed the job.

 _You're gonna have to heal fast, kid. I'm sorry._

* * *

Sully was on his third beer when Nate finally stumbled into the entrance.

He'd managed to make a mess of his short hair—it was spiked with sea salt, and sticking up every direction. They'd made a getaway by water, then. His clothes were fresh, at least—his prison fatigues had been swapped for a dark t-shirt and some jeans, probably courtesy of Rafe. The fabric hung off his frame, only adding to his unkempt appearance.

Then Sully got a good look at his face, and his stomach turned.

Nate had always been a skinny kid, but his face was gaunt and pale under his usual tan. Dark smudges bruised the skin under his eyes, and he was covered in scrapes and cuts. The look on his face, though—his eyes looked empty.

The other kid beside him—must be Rafe—murmured something in his ear, and Nate nodded. He gave a quick scan of the room, and when his eyes found Sully, his vacant expression broke into one of pain.

Sully stood up and made his way over, offering a hand. Nate looked about ready to fall over—he hoped they hadn't been drinking too much on the plane. "Hey, kid. Come on—" He'd intended to guide him towards the table, get some food into him—God, did Nate ever look thin—but instead, Nate more or less fell into him, grabbing him and wrapping his lanky arms around Sully, his face buried into his shoulder. He smelled like sea water and sweat and a tinge of blood.

"He's gone," Nate murmured. Sully felt Nate's fingers grab fistfuls of his shirt, and he tentatively wrapped his arms around the kid. The bar wasn't totally empty, but Nate seemed oblivious to the small audience they had. "He's gone, he's _gon—"_

"I know, kid, I know. Come on." He tried to pull away, but Nate had a tight grip on him, and there was a small tremor running through his thin frame. Sully looked over to Adler, who had a carefully constructed expression of neutrality, one he immediately recognised as bullshit. He could see the impatience and the annoyance just under the surface of the kid's smooth features, and he felt a surprisingly strong urge to sock Adler in the face.

"There's a table near the back for you," Sully said to Rafe over Nate's shoulder. He could bullshit neutral cordiality, too. "Food and beer."

"We already ate on the pl—"

"Just go sit down," he growled.

Rafe shrugged, a small smile tugging at his mouth. "Alright," he said, raising his hands, and slipped past them.

They were still in the small alcove of the entrance. Now that they were alone, or as alone as they could be, he patted Nate on the back.

"It'll be okay, Nate," he said, knowing it really wouldn't be okay for a very long time. The kid didn't need to hear the truth right now, though. "Come on. Let's get you upstairs."

That seemed to garner a response. Nate nodded and pulled away from him, wiping his face on his shoulder. Oh Jesus, the kid was crying. This wasn't good. "Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah, okay."

A combination of exhaustion, shock and grief made it almost impossible for Nate to walk properly on his own. Luckily, Sully had a good amount of experience in helping drunks up or down flights of stairs, and easily guided Nate up to the rented out room. Marisola, the inkeep, had prepared the bed for Nate earlier in the evening, and given Sully a deal on the room. He'd have paid any amount to give Nate a place to rest his head, but he gave her a nod of gratitude as they walked past the bar. She'd always been welcoming to them when they were in the country, even if she shared Sully's dislike of Sam.

"Get in the shower, first, before you get into bed. You'll feel better," Sully said, pushing the room door open and gently pushing Nate towards the bathroom. He spotted a few towels and some soap resting on the sink counter. "There's a spare set of clothes on the bed for wh—"

Nate barely made it three steps into the room before he collapsed. His hand was twisted in the fabric of Sully's shirt cuff, but he weighed so little that he managed to just hang off of the older man and didn't completely reach the floor boards.

"He's dead," Nate kept whispering, and Sully easily managed to half-carried him to the edge of the bed, sitting down next to him—Nate had a death grip on his arm. "He's dead."

Physical contact rarely happened between them, unless they were lending a hand to haul one of them off the floor after a bar fight or help patch up an injury. Nate licked his wounds alone, in private, always. The fact that he was hanging off Sully, opening crying, was goddamn terrifying.

He put his free arm around Nate's shoulders, awkwardly holding the kid close. He was never good at this sort of thing, dammit.

"I know, kid," he repeated, not knowing what else to say. "It'll be okay."

Nate had his head pressed into Sully's shoulder, and any kind of restraint he'd been holding onto snapped now that they were totally alone.

The kid didn't cry pretty—he let out sobs in big, gulping gasps, his whole body shaking with each breath. Hot tears marked Sully's shirt and made uneven tracks in the dirt on Nate's face. He'd managed to curl in on himself, tucked into Sully's side as if he were half his real height.

Sully wasn't doing too well, either. He kept his arm around the kid, rocking gently, both to comfort Nate and to give him something to do. This was something he couldn't help him with, couldn't fix with a phone call or a loan—Nate would have to just get over the loss of his brother in his own time, in his own way.

But he could sit here with him, at least. Let him be a kid for a night—let him have a good cry, and be there for Nate like his parents hadn't been. That much he could do for him.


	5. Conspiracy Theories

**Prompt:** **Nate really hates the History Channel. Like, a lot.**

 **[** **Any similarities to IRL people/shows is obviously, totally, entirely, completely not intentional At All.]**

Elena sighed, mashing the channel button on the TV remote. She was trying to find something decent for her and Nate to watch while they ate dinner, but her quest to find quality programming looked more and more bleak with each passing flicker of bad soap operas and B-rate movies.

Nothing. There was nothing on TV. Over a thousand channels, and all of it was terrible. _Why the hell are we even paying for this? We only ever watch Netflix anyw—_

The great Forbidden Channel whizzed by as she surfed, and Elena suddenly paused, thinking. She looked over the couch and saw that Nate's back was still to her as he stood at the counter chopping veggies, humming quietly to himself. She grinned and sat back. There might not be anything on television, but watching Nate go on a rant was always entertaining.

She couldn't really turn it on until the last moment, though, or he'd hear it from the kitchen and have a fit, and then dinner would never get finished—no, she'd have to switch to it just as he sat down. It was the one channel that was never spoken of in this house, and definitely never allowed to be on their flatscreen.

Which wasn't really a loss for her. She'd never really cared much for any of those history channels anyway—she knew it was all hype and buzzwords and grand exaggerations, and living with a Drake gave her all the history lessons she could ever wish for. If she ever wanted to learn about ancient civilisations, she'd pose an innocent, open-ended question to Nate about an old building in Shanghai, or cultural norms in fourteenth century Ireland, or something just as vague, and get a feature-length conversation from him—sometimes he'd even pause to run up to the attic and grab some trinket he'd collected to use as a talking piece. It was adorable, really.

But not as funny as seeing him vent about historical inaccuracy and corny conspiracy theories about the Giza pyramids. She really should videotape him sometime.

"Hey, hon?"

She looked over the back of the couch. "Yeah?"

"Where's the salad dressing?"

"Second shelf of the door. Dinner ready?"

"There it is," he muttered, head buried in the fridge. "Yeah. I'll bring it over. Find something good to watch?"

"Oh yeah," she said, watching him balance two plates and a pair of beers on his arms, carrying it all in one go to the sofa.

He frowned, looking at the channel that was currently on the television. "We're watching Lacrosse?"

"Oh no, I just didn't want to ruin the surprise," she replied. He looked at her suspiciously and passed her a beer, which she carefully placed on the table. She didn't know how explosive of a reaction she'd garner from him, and didn't want to potentially have beer spill everywhere if things got dramatic.

When he sat down next to her, handing her a plate, she changed the channel.

"Look," she said, gesturing to the TV with the remote. "It's your favourite historian."

His expression was blank for a moment, then turned to one of pure horror. "Elena—"

She pushed a button and pulled up the show info, temporarily blocking out the face of the overly tanned "anthropologist" on the screen. The audio, though, in all its glory, was still blasting through the speakers.

"The guide says this episode is about the possibility of aliens ferrying away the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in order to preserve it from human corrup—"

"Give me the thing!" He set his plate down and made a grab for her hand, and she stretched her arm out behind her head, holding it away from him.

"The thing?"

"The TV thing! Turn it off!"

"Don't you want to learn about one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient—" The rest of her sentence was muffled in Nate's sweater as he dove over her to retrieve the remote in her hand. She heard dishes clatter as his foot hit the coffee table, and she hoped nothing had gone flying.

"You're squishing me!" he grunted, wiggling underneath him, all the while the show began discussing the _strange lack of physical evidence for these ancient, mysterious gardens._

"Give it to me!"

She poked him in the side, trying to get him off her, and he curled up on top of her as she tickled him. However, that didn't stop him from struggling to reach her dangling hand. "Don't—just—give me the— _remote!"_

"Look!" she said, popping her head up and watching the TV over his shoulder. "It's the aliens part!"

She felt the controller finally slip from her grasp, and Nate gave a triumphant "aha!" before the screen quickly changed to a sports channel.

She surrendered to a fit of giggles as Nate resituated them on the couch, huffing in annoyance. When they were both sitting upright again, he glared at her.

"Why would you do that?" he asked, his tone one of betrayal.

"Because I want to learn more about history," she said, pouting. "Besides, you don't even like sports."

Nate ignored the comment, going into full History Expert Mode. "They didn't even get the date right! The Gardens were supposedly built in six hundred BCE, not a _thousand years ago."_ His face scrunched up, making the evil eye at the TV. "And it was in _Iraq,_ not Iran. How does this even make it onto television? Who signs for this crap?"

"So you _were_ watching it."

"It's like a train wreck!" He grabbed his plate off the table—thankfully still with all its food sitting on it—and angrily stabbed at a piece of lettuce. "How can you not watch?"

"Okay, but maybe the aliens did carry the Gardens away, because there's no evidence of them in Babylon—"

"That doesn't mean _aliens_ were involved!"

Elena sat back, grabbing her beer and listening to him yell about how _wrong_ everybody on that "completely bullshit" show was. Eventually he stood up and started pointing aggressively to the television to better support his argument, and she managed to record a few seconds of him yelling and send it to Sully while he wasn't looking.

 _I've just triggered Nate and don't know_ _if I can turn him off,_ she texted to him, nodding sagely while Nate paced around the room and waved his hands in the air, food forgotten. _Any ideas?_

 _Ride it out, darling._ Sully texted back a moment later, and she could almost see him smiling down at his phone. _There's no stopping him once he gets going._


	6. A Job Gone Wrong

**Prompt: Sam and Nate return home from a job.**

* * *

 ***SPOILER WARNING* For Uncharted 4. Well, kinda. Sam is in it, but there aren't any UC4 plot spoilers. So Sam is the only spoiler, if you don't know who he is.**

 **Also - sorry for not replying to any reviews! FF is acting kinda screwy and won't let me reply to them right now. I'll get back to you wonderful people as soon as FF fixes itself. Enjoy!**

* * *

Even before the front door opened, he could hear Nate crying.

Sully instantly got to his feet, ignoring the scotch he'd just spilled on the carpet. He'd been waiting for Sam and Nate to get back from their little job—Sam hadn't offered up many details on it, and Nate had been just as tight-lipped about what they were doing in silent defense of his brother—but he'd never expect to hear Nate in so much distress coming home.

"Victor!" Sam called, and Sully got to the front hall just as Sam hauled Nate into the apartment. "Victor, you gotta help him!"

"What the hell happened?" He hurried over and tried to grab Nate's other arm to help carry him, but Nate howled in pain when he tried to move his arm. That's when he saw the splash of blood on the kid's shirt—and the small, clean hole torn into the fabric, just below his ribs.

"You let him get _shot?"_ he thundered, rounding on Sam. The older Drake's face twisted in anger, and they continued the conversation as they gingerly carried Nate into the living room.

 _"No,"_ Sam corrected him, voice short and sharp. "The cops shot at him! He's a fucking kid and they just _shot_ him—"

Sully heard sirens in the distance, and felt his blood pressure reach a new high. They had to get out of here, quickly—and somehow do that with a seventeen year-old who could barely walk and was bleeding all over his clothes.

Sam seemed to guess his thoughts. "We lost 'em, don't worry. They don't got a record of us living here. Come on, Nathan, sit down."

They lowered Nate onto the couch. The kid's breath came out in broken, tight sobs, and Sully could see he was focusing all his strength on trying not to cry. Even still, hot tears trailed down his cheeks.

"Jesus goddamn Christ," Sully muttered. He knelt down and raised a hand to move Nate's shirt out of the way.

"Ah!" Nate hissed, flinching away from Sully. "Don't—don't touch it—"

"I gotta see it, kid. We can't exactly take you to a hospital." Sully pushed him back onto the couch gently, then looked at Sam. "In the bathroom there's a first aid kit. Grab it for me."

"He needs surgery!" Sam yelled. "You can't just give him a bandaid—"

"Grab the goddamn kit!" he barked, and Sam snarled and ran out of the living room. He looked back at Nate. The kid wasn't looking too hot. _You're only seventeen, dammit. Don't you dare bleed out now._

"Hey," he said, tapping Nate on the cheek, who looked like he would lose consciousness at any moment. "Don't pass out, kid. You hear me?"

Nate's eyes were closed, but he saw him grit his teeth and nod. When Sully lifted his shirt up, Nate whined.

"It hurts so bad," he whispered, breathing fast and shallow. "Am I… am I gonna die, Sully?"

"No, you aren't," he said quickly. The bullet looked like it'd gone deep enough into his side to hit organs. Depending on which one of those organs that was, he may or may not be telling Nate the truth. "You just gotta stay awake, okay kid?"

Nate let his head fall back, and he nodded again. "Yeah, okay. I'll—I'll stay awake."

Sam ran back into the room, kit in hand. His expression was sour, but he was silent for the moment—boy, were they going to have a talk later.

"Open it and give me the alcohol and some gauze." Sully ordered without looking away from Nate. He rolled up the blood-soaked t-shirt and instructed Nate to hold the fabric up. Giving the kid something to do seemed to help him stay conscious.

"We have to take him somewhere—"

"We are," Sully ground out. "But I have to stop him from bleeding out first." His wrists were already slick with crimson—no black, though. That means it hadn't hit Nate's stomach. A small blessing, at least.

He wiped his hands on the legs of his pants and grabbed the alcohol and gauze from Sam. A little bit of pressure would slow the external bleeding, but they needed to do this quick, or the internal wounds would bleed out no matter how much they bandaged his side.

"This is going to hurt a lot, kid. I'm sorry."

Sam held Nate down while Sully quickly cleaned the entry wound—no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still inside of him. He hoped to god it hadn't broken apart.

Nate's whole body was shaking by the time Sully was done, and he was letting out a low, constant moan. He tried to muffle it into his shoulder with little success, and Sully put a hand on his arm. The kid couldn't even legally _drink_ yet and here he was, gritting through a bullet wound. _You should be in high school, going to prom, not bleeding out on my goddamn sofa._

"Okay, you did good, Nate. Now we have to bring you to the car." He motioned to Sam and they hauled him off the couch. It was two in the morning, so he hoped no one would see them in the apartment building—although even if they did, their neighbours generally weren't people to report things to the police. He prayed they'd go unnoticed either way.

"You got a doctor friend who can fix this mess?" Sam asked as they steered Nate to the door.

"Yeah, I got someone," he said, being careful not to add _I hope they can help._ He also didn't bother to add that it was _Sam's_ mess—it wouldn't do Nate any good to start an argument now. He'd make sure to give Sam a goddamn earful when this was over.

"Hold him. I gotta grab some cash—and then let's get the hell out of here."


	7. Just a Kid - Part II

**Prompt: Nate and Sully figure out what to do next.**

* * *

 ***SPOILER WARNING* - Since this is a continuation of Chapter 4, the same spoilers apply for UC4. Also, I apologize for any potential butchering of Spanish in this chapter (I only know the bare minimum of the language, unfortunately), and please let me know if I've made any errors!**

* * *

He woke up alone for the first time in months.

He could hear other people in the adjacent rooms— _not cells—_ moving around, talking softly, but it was quiet in his room. No soft breathing coming from a bunk across from him, no clinking of keys and pistols from the guards, and definitely no smell of steel and old concrete and mould.

It felt wrong, but then again everything did. He added it to the list of changes he wasn't prepared to deal with just yet, even if some of them were pleasant ones. Prison with his brother was a known devil—solitary freedom was a terrible luxury he couldn't make sense of.

Laying there, he took a moment to take stock of every hurt and ache he had. His eyes felt swollen, crusted and bruised; a headache beat in time with his heart, just behind his eyes. His mouth was fuzzy and tasted sour, and he smelled awful—like sea water and sweat and dirt. And just about every muscle in his body felt heavy and sore with fatigue.

Nate forced himself off of the bed—he was still exhausted, but sleep only brought back the sounds of gunfire and the phantom sensation of Sam spitting blood in his face. As much as he didn't want to be awake, it was preferable to dreaming.

The bed sheets had been kicked to the ground, and he tossed them back onto the mattress as he stood up. The room was hot; at least that much hadn't changed. He was used to the humidity by now.

He stumbled over to the bathroom and into the shower, clothes left in a pile on the floor, and stood under the water long enough to feel somewhat clean again. He'd dreamed of a hot, private shower with soap that didn't sting his skin while he was in prison, but the indulgence felt hollow now.

When the water ran cold, he turned the faucet off and stepped out, towelling himself dry. When he saw what he looked like in the mirror, he made sure to wash his face again. He couldn't get rid of the bruises and the cuts, but he could remove the mud and the uneven sheen on his skin from crying. _Thieves don't cry,_ as Sam would say to him whenever he got hurt. _Can't steal from a thief, little brother, since none of what he's got is actually his. That hurt ain't yours—it's someone else's, pushed on you, that's all. Let's go give it back, am I right?_

 _But I can't give this back._

There were clothes sitting on the lone dresser for him when he moved back into the main room—they were _his_ clothes, not Rafe's, or bought from some department store. His own. That was nice. Sully must have made sure to have them on hand.

They didn't quite fit—the pants were too loose, and the shirt was roomier than he remembered. He cinched his belt tight, shoved his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, and slipped on a pair of sneakers. He tried to stall for a few extra minutes of time and combed his hair again, but he was quickly out of things to do in the rented out bedroom.

Time to go downstairs.

 _I wonder if Rafe is still around. He wanted to come here to ask Sully for help, after all. Guess I'll find out._

He unlocked the door and stepped out. He could smell roasting plantains, coffee and eggs coming from downstairs, and felt his stomach rumble. Right. He hadn't really eaten supper last night.

Marisola was the first person he saw when he descended the stairs of the tiny inn. She smiled at him from behind the counter. _"Buen día, cariño."_

 _"_ _Buenos días,"_ he replied, forcing a smile. She disappeared behind the door to her left and came back a moment later, carrying a large breakfast plate. She handed it to him, smiling kindly. Marisola had always been nice to him—whenever he and Sully and Sam were here on business, she offered them a room and food for a good price, and in turn they would cut her in on some of their less dangerous deals.

"Eat," she said. "You are so skinny I can see your bones."

"Thanks." He grabbed the plate from her, the smell making his mouth water. Then he frowned and patted his jean pockets, realising, of course, that he had no money. "I don't have any—"

She waved her hands, as if to shoo him away. "No, no no no. _Invita la casa._ Go on, eat, before you fall out of your clothes."

He nodded, thanking her again, then went to sit down at their regular booth. It was still early, and the place was mostly empty, which worked just fine for him.

He worked through his meal quickly—he tried not to fork it all down as fast as he could, but it would take a while to break the habit of guarding his food. The spices stung the cut on his lip and the lacerations on the inside of his mouth, and he forced himself to slow down.

He was halfway finished with his meal when he heard Sully's voice, and then his appetite vanished.

"Mornin', kid. How you feeling?"

He looked up, straight at Sully, who was looking back at him with a rare, soft expression that made his gut churn. He hated sympathy. It just made him think about shit he'd rather forget.

"Um," he began, setting his fork down. "Yeah. I'm—yeah, I'm okay."

Sully nodded, but his expression said he knew Nate was lying. He was holding two cups of coffee, and set one down in front of Nate as he slid into the booth seat opposite of him. "I see Marisola fed you. You look like you could stand to gain twenty pounds."

Nate didn't really hear Sully's words. Last night came flooding back to him, and he felt his face grow hot with shame.

"Might have to buy you some new clothes, too, if y—"

"Sully."

He looked up, a silver brow arched up to his hairline as he sipped his drink. "What is it?"

Nate cleared his throat and looked down at the steam coming from his coffee. "I—I'm sorry, about, about last night—"

Sully waved a hand. "Pfft. Don't you worry about that—"

"No," he said forcefully. "I'm sorry. Really. I don't know what that—I–I didn't mean to—"

"Nate," Sully interrupted, face serious. "You lost your brother. You're allowed to be upset."

He shook his head, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in his chest at Sully's words. "Still, that's no reason t—"

"Looks like there's only sweetener in there," Sully interrupted again, pointing to the small basket of condiments on their table in a weak attempt to change the subject. "I'll go grab some real sugar for you." He stood up, looking towards the front counter, trying to spot a jar of sugar.

"Sully—"

"Kid, like I said, don't worry about it." He gave Nate a hard, don't-argue-with-me look. "I signed up to take care of you two, and that's what I'm doing—it's what I did last night. Don't apologise. Clear?"

Nate sighed and sat back, nodding. "Yeah, clear."

"Good. Eat the rest of that," he replied, jerking his chin to the plate of food. "Then we can figure out where to go from here."

"Wait—where's Rafe?"

Sully rolled his eyes. "Adler? Went across town to another hotel—guess this wasn't fancy enough for him." He made a dismissive gesture and shoved a hand in his front pocket, probably toying with a cigar. "Don't worry about Adler right now—just eat some goddamn food."


	8. New Years Celebration(s)

**Prompt: Time zones, how do they work?**

 **Inspired by this prompt on tumb** **lr: "Imagine person A and B are in two different time zones, and argue about when to say 'Happy New Years.""**

* * *

 **Also, kinda very light spoilers for UC4 (just a mention about what Nate does for work.)**

* * *

His phone rang twice before he picked up. "Hey, hon," Nate said cheerfully. She could hear the usual sounds in the background—birds, boats creaking and settling in the river, and the distant, ever-present sound of dock workers yelling at one another.

"Nate! Hey, are you awake?" she said by way of greeting, fingering the stem of the fancy champagne glass in her hand.

She heard a laugh at his end. "Elena, it's ten in the morning here."

She nodded, even though he couldn't see her, and took a healthy swig of champagne. "Right. Time zones."

He paused for a moment. "Are you drunk?"

"It's the new year!" she said defensively. "Well, in like half an hour it will be. Are you going to count down with me?"

His end made a muffled rustling noise in lieu of a reply. She heard another voice that wasn't him, and Nate's voice. "It's my wife, yeah," she heard him whisper, then he came back to the phone, tone more business-like. "Elena, I'm at work right now."

"It's the new year and you won't even count down with your _wife?"_ she said, doing her best to sound offended.

"Well since you're in Beijing, the new year won't actually be until the middle of January—"

"But _you_ are in America, soo—" she paused to take a sip. " _We_ are celebrating _American_ New Year's—"

"Technically New Year's was originally a Mesopotamian holid—"

"Come _on,_ do _not_ get all history–y on me—"

"'History–y'?" She could hear the smile in his voice return.

"Nate," she said, stressing the importance of the call by trying to be serious. "I am _alone_ , in Beijing, for _New Years_ , drinking _by myself,_ and _no one_ is celebrating with me."

"Nah, you got your pity party with you to keep you company," he supplied, sounding pleased with himself.

" _Ha,_ rich. Very funny, Mr. Drake. This does not _change_ the fact that I am _drunk_ and _alone_ on New Year's Eve because I decided to do actual _research_ for my article right after Christmas, and I can't even _kiss_ you when the new year begins."

"I think Jameson will let me take an early break," he said after a moment of thinking. "If so, I'll gladly count with you."

"He's a reasonable man," Elena agreed. "He will understand the grav–gravity of the situation."

"It is very serious," Nate reasoned. "So how long until it's officially the new year in Beijing?"

"Um." She looked at her watch. "Twenty-two minutes and counting."

"You want to count for twenty-two minutes?"

" _No_ , silly. We can wait until it gets closer. Oh no," she murmured, turning her glass upside down.

"What is it?"

"I'm all out of champagne," she explained. She opened the paper drink menu in her hand with a messy wrist flick and looked over her options. "I've never tried baijiu—is it any good?"

"You aren't going to go out and buy alcohol _now_ , are you?" A hint of concern coloured his voice.

"No; the hotel has room service."

"Oh. Then yeah, it's decent. I prefer erguotou, though—"

"Baijiu it is!" she said excitedly. "I have to hang up to call room service—but I'll call right back, okay?"

He laughed. "Then I'll go ask Jameson about that break."

She nodded again. "I love you, Nate."

She could practically _see_ him smiling. "Love you too. Talk soon."


	9. Dinner Plans

**Prompt: Nate and Elena have to be responsible adults after a crazy night.**

 **Inspired by this prompt on tumb** **lr: "Imagine the OTP having some incredibly wild sex one night. The next day when they wake up, they're both sore and everything aches. Person A suddenly remembers that they were supposed to hang out with some friends later that day. For the rest of the afternoon, A and B try to pretend that nothing happened in bed last night. Their friends eventually find out what happened anyway."**

 **Also - I just wanted to say thanks a bunch for all the lovely reviews, faves and follows this story has gotten so far - they make my day!**

* * *

Usually, when her and Nate had the luxury of sleeping in together, she woke up with her head resting on his shoulder, or at least on his pillow, with one of his arms curled around her.

This morning they were both sprawled out on their own sides of the bed—one of her legs were thrown over his, but other than that they were totally separate. She sighed and sat up, then winced at the result. Not only did her whole body feel stiff, but she reached up and rubbed at her sore throat. She hoped to god she hadn't lost her voice. _Otherwise this is going to be a very awkward dinner with my parents—not that that's anything new._

Elena looked over at Nate, then bit back a laugh. He'd tangled the blankets in a twirling mess around his legs, and his hair was a shock of cowlicks and whorls—such a disorganised sleeping position was generally reserved for nights of heavy drinking or really long, tedious jobs with Sully—not that he did those anymore.

 _Although we were pretty drunk last night_.

Then she spotted the small, red marks going down the skin of his neck and marking up his collarbone, and her grin widened.

They hadn't had sex like that in… well, a while. Mostly because he had to get up for work really early in the mornings and also because it tended to result in a great deal of muscle soreness. They definitely weren't in their twenties anymore.

She huffed and gingerly got out of bed, trying not to wake Nate, and limped over to the bathroom to brush her teeth. _Little bit saddlesore, too. Ow._ A warm bubble bath would fix her problems, but she'd wait for Nate to wake up and join her.

She also calmed down her own mess of hair while she was up, untangling knots and extracting any stray bobby pins she hadn't removed the night before. Elena then slipped on a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt that were lying on the top of her hamper and looked fairly clean. When she looked a bit more presentable, she moved back into the bedroom, and saw Nate was awake and discovering his own aches and bruises.

"Hey," she said, standing in doorway of the bathroom as she watched him. He sat up, and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

"Hi," he replied, frowning. He coughed and rubbed at the back of his neck, rolling his head to work out some kinks. "Jesus."

"Yeah, I'm sore too."

"And hoarse."

"Yeah."

He grinned, reaching out a hand for her to come sit next to him, and she happily complied.

"Well worth it, though," he continued. When she sat down on the bed, he pulled her close and held her against his chest. "Might need a massage to work out all the stiffness."

"I was thinking a bubble bath," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

He hummed in agreement and kissed the top of her head. They laid there in content silence for a few moments. They both smelled like sweat and wine and last night's festivities, but she was too comfortable for now to immediately worry about it.

Then Nate started squirming. She looked up at him; his eyes were closed, and there was a slight smile on his lips, but he wouldn't sit still.

"Something the matter?"

"I have to pee, but I don't want to get up," he explained.

She laughed. "Well we have to get up soon anyway."

He opened his eyes and his smile disappeared. "What? Why?"

"My parents are coming over, remember?"

He groaned and fell dramatically back onto his pillow. "Can't we cancel?" he asked, an arm draped over his eyes.

"They flew in from Florida for this dinner; I can't cancel on them last minute."

He let out a heaving sigh. "When are they showing up again?"

She glanced at the clock. "In about four hours."

"Then we can still sl—"

"There's no food prepared," she interrupted him. "And I have to go out and get some wine, since we kinda drank the two bottles last night."

Nate grinned at that. "Yeah, we did."

She patted his leg. "Come on. Bath, and then we should start getting ready."

He unhooked his arm from his eyes to look at her from under his bicep. "Long bath?"

"You really wanna do it again? I'm still pretty sore." She smoothed a gentle thumb over a rather impressive bite mark left on his upper bicep. _A bath might sting a little._

He frowned, his brows drawing together. "We can take it slow."

She looked at the bedside clock again. "Well we've got… half an hour, give or take."

He nodded, trying his best to remain serious. "We can definitely work with that." She saw him formulating a plan of attack in his mind, and rolled her eyes. Sex with a time constraint was about the only thing Nate made a concerted effort to plan out—wouldn't want to waste valuable time, of course.

 _The outcome is usually pretty great, though._


	10. Happy Birthday

**Prompt: Cassie gives Sam a birthday present.**

 **This chapter was inspired by spengs' lovely art of Sam on tumblr, but unfortunately FF won't let me link the page. It's linked on AO3 if anyone is interested in the exact post.**

 **This turned out to be much longer than expected, so I wouldn't say it's a "drabble", just lots of Drake family fluff.**

* * *

 ***SPOILER WARNING* for the end of UC4 all over this chapter, folks.**

* * *

For a couch, it was a decent place to sleep—that was, of course, without the damn dog trying wrest control of it from him every twenty minutes.

Vicky's current unfortunate position found her wedged in between his legs, with her back paw pressing hard into his upper thigh. His left foot was a numb mess of pins and needles from her sleeping on his shins—the reason he'd woken up, _again._

 _Victor should've never bought Cassie the damn dog._

He nudged Vicky off the edge of the low-sitting sofa for the umpteenth time with his tingling foot. The dog grumbled, only partly awake herself, and thumped onto the floorboards.

"Go sleep somewhere else," he muttered into the throw pillow, then shifted position onto his side.

Vicky huffed in response and trotted away, her collar making an obnoxiously cheery jingle as she went. Hopefully she was off to go annoy his brother instead. _They really need to get a proper guest bed so I don't have to sleep in their living room._

He settled back into a more comfortable position now that there was nothing obstructing movement on two thirds of the couch, and flexed his numb toes back into feeling as he drifted towards unconsciousness.

Sam was on the verge of a wonderfully deep sleep when he felt another disturbance near the foot of the couch. "God, go _away,"_ he moaned, sticking out a leg in preemptive defense. _Stupid dog. They've only had you for eight months—you're still on probation._

"You almost kicked me!" A small squeak and a patter of bare feet on the hardwood accompanied the exclamation. Definitely not a dog.

He jumped at the unexpected voice, and sat up on an elbow. "Cassie?" he murmured, rubbing at his face. "What—what time is it?"

"It's morning," she responded. The little girl came into proper view and gave him a toothy grin. "You need to wake up."

He laid back down on the pillow, sighing. "And why is that?"

"It's your birthday."

"So?"

"So mom made special breakfast for us but we can't eat it until you're awake." She looked down at the floorboards and hooked a small toe under the carpet, worrying the edge, the first stage of her _please-do-what-I-want_ act. _That whole sulky-eyed thing might work on Nathan, but it sure as hell won't on me._

"Guess you're going hungry then," he muttered and rolled over, facing away from her.

"No!" She ran up to him and pawed at his shoulder. "Uncle Sam, you need to wake up!"

He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. "Give me a couple more hours."

"What! That is _too long!"_ She laid a more forceful hand on his shoulder and shook him again. "Wake up! Up, up!"

Vicky must have heard Cassie, clearly in distress, and came barrelling back into the room. The big dumb lab give a loud bark and jumped unceremoniously onto the couch—right on his ribs. She made a low _borf_ noise, tongue hanging half out of her mouth.

"Wake him up, Vick!" Cassie yelled. She changed tactics and began to poke him in the back of the neck. "Up!"

He suffered through another minute of incessant poking and pawing and barking before giving in, and he swore he could hear his brother and sister-in-law snickering to themselves down the hall in the kitchen.

"Agh! Stop, Jesus, _okay."_ He shoved the dog off of him, who yipped in surprise, and then sat up. He threw the blanket over the back of the couch and rubbed another hand over his face.

"Coffee?" he asked, peering at the little girl's through his fingers.

She nodded. "Dad made some."

"Well let me have a cigarette and coffee at least, and then we can eat."

"Dad said they're bad for you."

"Well your dad's a moron."

Cassie giggled, then looked over her shoulder. "Shhh! He might hear you."

"I hope he does. Do you hear me, Nathan?" he called, raising his voice. He stretched out his arms, trying to remove the kinks in his spine.

"What's that?" he heard from the kitchen.

"I said you're a goddamn moron!" he repeated, and Cassie started giggling again at the foul language her uncle was using.

"What did I do?" Nathan's voice was closer now, and his brother appeared in the doorway. Then he frowned when he saw Cassie. "Really, with the swearing? Cass is right th—"

"See?" Sam stage-whispered to the girl. "He's a total bore. Doesn't like anything fun."

"Yeah, yeah," Nathan responded, then motioned to Cassie. "Come on; we can eat now."

"Yay!" She ran out of the room, tiny legs pumping furiously, and Vicky followed suit right behind her.

"You have a very annoying alarm clock," Sam muttered, jerking his chin in the direction his niece had gone, standing up and groaning. "And a shitty couch."

"Elena was talking about adding onto the house for when you and Sully visit." His brother grinned and looked towards the kitchen, where Cassie was making as much noise as possible while pulling out breakfast plates. "But the alarm clock is here to stay."

"She's a smart woman," he replied. "So, coffee?"

* * *

"Birthday pancakes!"

The small, excited voice preceded its owner, originating somewhere from behind the kitchen counter. A moment later Cassie appeared from behind the cupboards, a plate piled with pancakes in her tiny grasp. She thudded over to him and handed Sam the plate at a dangerously lopsided angle, but he managed to collect it from her before the meal spilled onto the floor.

"Thanks," he murmured, taking a seat at their breakfast table. There was a small candle sticking out of the stack of blueberry pancakes, still yet to be lit. With that accomplished, Cassie ran back to the kitchen, making incomprehensible sounds that he interpreted as enthusiasm.

Nathan and Elena were annoyingly chipper this morning, the both of them chatting in the kitchen and completely content with letting their small child wreak havoc with the breakfast cutlery. He was pleased that his brother had finally settled down and started a family, but _goddamn,_ their house was noisy. It wasn't even nine in the morning yet.

Sam took a deep swig of his coffee, hoping the caffeine would help him cope with the noise level a six year-old, a dog, and a happily married couple produced all in one room. It was a big change of pace from his small apartment in Key West.

"Come on," Elena said, breaking away from her discussion about Cambodian leaf books with Nathan to usher Cassie back towards the table, as the little girl was preoccupied with wiggling a fork at Vicky now that she had successfully delivered breakfast to her uncle. "Let's go eat with Sam."

They all settled in, with Cassie making sure to sit right beside him and Vicky trotting anxiously around the table in hopes of some food, who was frequently shooed away by either Elena or his brother.

"So?" Elena asked, watching Sam finish off his coffee, a match poised in her hand. "Can I light your birthday candle?"

He gave her the best smile he could muster this early in the morning. "Oh, any day of the week, sweetheart."

She rolled her eyes and flicked the match to life, not bothering to reply. Cassie's eyes widened and she reached out a chubby hand towards the bright object. "Can I do it?" she asked, expression hopeful.

Elena and Nathan exchanged a wary glance before she nodded and reached over to hand it to Cassie. "Yes, you can. Just be careful to keep your hand away from the flame, okay?"

Cassie nodded and eagerly grabbed the match. Elena's hand hovered close by, ready to act as damage control or assist in lighting the candle should the little girl's venture into independence go south.

Cassie's face scrunched in concentration as she reached out and pressed the end of the match to the small purple candle, smushing the tip of the match against the wick.

"I did it!" she yelped after a moment, giving Sam a huge grin.

He smiled back and grabbed the match from her carefully, pressing the flame out with a wetted finger. Then he laid it down out of reach in case she decided she wanted to play with it—the kid had definitely inherited Nathan's burning need to touch everything in sight.

"Don't do that!" Cassie exclaimed, smacking her hand on the table to emphasis her point. "You will burn your _finger!"_

"But I didn't, see?" He held up his hand and his niece inspected it.

"How did you do that?"

"Magic," he whispered to her. "But uh, don't try that yourself," he added when he got a hard look from his brother. "It's the advanced stuff."

She giggled, apparently satisfied with his mysterious answer and already over his trick. Then she looked back to the candle. "You have to blow it out now," she informed him.

He looked up at the other adults in the room. Elena was smiling into her coffee cup and Nathan had a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Go on, tough guy," Elena prodded him. "Blow out your purple birthday candle."

"I will," Sam shot back. He frowned down at the candle and took a deep breath. He wasn't used to having such a big audience for—well, anything. In fact, he preferred it when people ignored him. It made jobs that much easier.

"Having performance issues?" his brother asked after a long moment of them all staring at the candle expectantly.

"Fu—of course not," he ground out, glaring at Nathan. "Just want to do it right, is all. Never done this before."

His brother rolled his eyes and sat back, not sympathetic to Sam's inexperience with all things domestic.

"I can help you," Cassie offered. "If you don't know how. 's really easy."

"Oh yeah?" he prodded, taking advantage of this opportunity to deflect attention away from himself. "Why don't you show me?"

Cassie stood up on her chair, hands planted on the table for support, and happily blew out the candle for him. "Ta-da!" she said, grinning at everyone around the table.

"You're a pro," Sam exclaimed, giving her a smile. She beamed back at him and clapped her hands in triumph.

"Sneaky," Elena muttered, giving her brother-in-law a _look_. "The both of you."

"Hey, I didn't do anything," Nate defended, holding up his hands.

"I was just trying to make the kid happy," Sam added. "Looks like it worked, huh?"

"Time for presents!" Cassie bellowed and jumped off her chair without pretense, with Vicky running faithfully behind her. Both parents lurched towards her, making identical squeaks of concern, but she was already bolting down the hallway to her room by the time either of them stood up.

"I really wish she wouldn't do that," Nathan murmured, shaking his head.

"It's your fault," Elena replied, sighing at the direction Cassie had gone.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. She got your crazy parkour gene."

They continued to argue about whose genetic makeup influenced Cassie's jittery behaviour more while sounds of rummaging and the occasional bark came from the little girl's room. Sam refrained from mentioning that maybe her being a small child had something to do with her need to constantly be moving—it would be lost in their banter anyway, so he settled for sitting back and watching Nathan go up against someone as stubborn as he was.

Cassie came running back into the kitchen alongside the dog that was constantly glued to her a moment later, and held out a vaguely square-shaped object covered in blue and green wrapping paper to Sam. "Here," she said, shaking it at him when he didn't grab it. "This is for you. I bought it all by myself!"

"Must be special, then," he responded, and gingerly took the package from her. It was fairly light, and it made a faint clicking noise when he shook it.

"Open! Open it!" she demanded, squirming in place. Vicky's tail started up a dangerous fan behind her, spurred on by Cassie's excitement.

"I will, I will." He tore open the wrapping paper, placing it on the table, and inspected his birthday present.

It was a small wooden treasure box, with the word's _It's a pirate's life for me_ carved into the wood, just above the small lock in the front. He chuckled and angled the box at his brother. "You see this?"

"Dad told me you like pirates," Cassie interjected. " _Open it,"_ she whined.

He unhooked the small metal clasp and lifted the lid. Inside were a bunch of coins—they were a myriad of shapes and sizes and colours. Gold, silver and copper foil glinted inside, and he let out a full laugh when he picked one up and inspected it more closely.

Chocolate pirate coins.

"Do you like it?"

He looked down at got a front-seat view of one of Cassie's doe-eyed, pleading looks. _Maybe I'm not entirely immune to them, after all._

"I love them," he replied, and she squealed in delight.

"Eat one!"

He unwrapped the one in his hand and popped it into his mouth. The taste surprised him—it was _good_ chocolate. _They must have gone to a chocolatier for these_. He gave her a smile and reached into the chest.

"You want one?" he asked when he finished his. He grabbed another from the box and offered it to her.

Her eyes widened and she grabbed the silver tinfoil coin from him, turning it over in her palm. Nathan looked like he was about to protest Cassie eating chocolate for breakfast, but Sam waved him off.

After a moment of confusion on how to remove the foil, he helped her unwrap the piece of chocolate and made sure none fell on the floor to be eaten by the dog. Cassie promptly shoved the entire coin in her mouth and gave him a chocolatey grin.

"Goo'!" she muffled around the food.

"Don't talk with your mouth open—" both of her parents chided in unison. She gave them a dutiful nod and swallowed what she had.

"Happy birthday, Uncle Sam!" She bounced up and down, the chocolate potentially already acting on her energy levels.

He ruffled her hair, which earned a giggling squeak from Cassie. "Thanks, Cass. I love my present."

Sam inspected the box again. It was well made, with real metal clasps. He wondered if they'd gotten it specially ordered, since it was a far cry from the cheap dollar-store chocolate coins he usually saw in novelty shops and tourist traps.

Then Cassie pulled him out of his thoughts, her face very close to the pirate treasure box.

"So… can I have another one?"


	11. Long Distance

**Prompt: Nate has a bad dream, and technology betrays him.**

It's been awhile since he's dreamt of Elena dying.

He wakes with a start, a cry crawling half way up his throat before it dies and becomes a laboured breath instead. He's shaking, god it's been a long time since he woke up shaking like this. He lets out a few halfhearted sobs, too disoriented still to fully understand that the bloodied images of a crumpled, unmoving Elena beating behind his eyes weren't real.

Nate reaches an instinctive hand over to her side of the bed, and it doesn't help that Elena isn't there. He pats her pillow to make sure he didn't miss her somehow, and sits up.

The house is vacant and dark and quiet, and he can barely see his own hand in front of him. He almost calls out her name when he remembers where she is. Right. She's in Athens, covering the story on Greece's economic disaster. An ocean, a continent and a few time zones away.

But she's alive.

He pushes a trembling hand through his hair, frowning at the sticky sweat coating his skin and scalp. He rolls to the edge of the bed and rubs his hands at his eyes, trying to calm down.

 _She's okay. Flynn failed. She survived that bastard's grenade. She's alive._

He repeats that several times to himself, touching the ring on his finger as a tangible reminder that they really had gotten past it all, and it makes him feel a little better. Nate heaves a deep breath and slowly lays back down onto the mattress when he gets his breathing under control.

He grabs at his phone by the nightstand and flips it open. The light is unpleasantly bright, but he squints through the discomfort, scrolling through the options with the small wheel of buttons until he finds what he's looking for.

Her contact photo. He'd taken it while they were on vacation in Barcelona. It was the only picture he had of her on his phone—it wasn't really meant to be used for taking photos, but he wasn't big on smartphones, and he wasn't going to give Elena the satisfaction of winning their ongoing argument about him being behind on the times by going out and buying one.

He stares at the picture, repeating _she's okay_ in his head a few more times. The image of her, happy and smiling and _alive,_ is about as close as he could get to having her next to him. Nate briefly thinks about calling her—it's noon in Athens, so he wouldn't be waking her, and she was probably on a lunch break—but he decides against it. It was just a bad dream. She's fine, and he would be in a minute, too.

Eventually he manages to erase the fear and the thoughts of her dying in his arms, his phone forgotten, the image of Elena bright behind his eyelids as he drifted back to sleep.

* * *

She always knew, intellectually, that fast food was terrible in every country, but it still somehow shocked her when she bit into her burger and the taste of slimy processed cheese and heavily substituted beef assaulted her senses.

Elena made a dissatisfied noise and dropped her quarter pounder onto the paper wrapper, frowning when small droplets of grease went flying. "Ugh," she muttered when her mouth was clear. "Next time, we're eating local cuisine."

"You don't like Greek McDonald's?" Nura asked her, sweeping a couple of fries into her ketchup.

"I don't like any variety of it, really," she replied. "I prefer _natural_ food."

"You aren't turning into one of those preachy vegan types, I hope," her friend muttered, shovelling more fries into her mouth.

"God no. But I'm going to be forty soon, and I can't keep eating this sh—" Her phone blared, interrupting her speech about aging health. She grabbed it off the table, and smiled when she saw that it was Nate.

"Huh," she murmured. "Weird. It's still pretty early in the States." She cleared her throat and held the phone up to her ear. "Hey, Nate," she answered.

There was no reply.

"Nate?" she said again. "Hell–o?" She raised a brow at Nura, who shrugged and took a sip of her pop.

Elena was about to hang up when she finally heard something—a scraping of fingers hurriedly grabbing at the speaker of the phone. "Ye—yeah?"

She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. "You called?"

There was another pause. "No," he said, still sounding half-asleep and very confused. "I just answered the phone."

"After you called me," she continued. "How did you manage to sleep-dial me?" He had a dino phone too, leaving her to wonder how he'd managed to call her. "Are you at home?" He wouldn't be up this late unless Sully had dropped in for a visit—which happened less often than she liked, but that still didn't explain how tired he sounded.

"What? Yeah." There was some rustling, and it sounded like he sat up. "Yeah, I was just—yeah," he ended lamely, sounding almost embarrassed.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good. How's the story going?"

She nodded and poked at a lukewarm fry with her fork. "It's… slow going. The officials I've been speaking to don't really want to cooperate. Foreign journalists—well, shitty tabloid people—are a nuisance to them by this point, so we've had a lot of resistance."

"Mm," he hummed. "Well, I've seen you crack more stubborn governments. I'm sure you'll get through."

She frowned. "Are you okay, Nate?"

"Yeah, why?" God, he was awful at lying.

"You sound… weird. And isn't it like five in the morning there? Don't you have to work soon?"

"Four," he corrected around a yawn. "And yeah. Yeah, just… had a bad dream."

"What about?"

"Shambhala," he murmured, and then it clicked into place. _So a really bad dream, then._ He'd had them before—God, so had she—but it'd been a while for both of them.

"Nate—"

"It's okay, really. You're okay, right?"

"I'm being subjected to the Eastern European version of McDonald's, but otherwise I'm fine." She shot a glance at her friend, who simply rolled her eyes in response.

He laughed a bit at that. "I just, um… I must have called you by accident when I fell asleep. I woke up, and you weren't here, and—I just wanted to see your face, and my phone was close by, so... I just wanted to make sure you were still alive and everything, you know?"

She covered her mouth again, this time to hide the big, silly grin plastered on her face. "That's really adorable, Nate."

He groaned, and it sounded like he flopped down onto the mattress. "Please don't," he muttered into his pillow.

"It is _so_ cute—"

"You're not with anyone, right?"

"Just the Man Police. They heard everything. They want your macho card back." Nura gave her a look, obviously interested in hearing the other half of Elena's conversation, but she waved at her friend in dismissal. She usually had odd phone conversations with her husband, and most of her coworkers were used to it by now.

"Ha ha," he said, sounding not at all amused. "You should give up journalism. Be a comedian instead."

"Mm," she hummed in agreement. "I do have a lot of embarrassing stories. The ones about you would be a real hit—"

"I'm going to bed now."

She laughed. "Goodnight, Nate. Your blankie's in the dryer if you need it."

"Not funny."

"I love you too," she replied, and she heard the smile in his voice when he responded.

"Always."


	12. Dangerous Desserts

**From anon prompt on tumblr: "Person A (Nate) has an allergic reaction while hanging out with Person B (Elena) and some friends (Sully). Person B freaks out while Person C rolls their eyes and epipens Person A."**

* * *

It was just three days until their wedding, and yet she was sitting there working on devouring an entire cheesecake with Nate and Sully.

Of course Elena wasn't into the whole starve-to-be-pretty thing, but she'd been careful the past few weeks, trying to make sure the horribly expensive wedding dress she purchased didn't bulge in the wrong places and become immortalised in their wedding photos. She'd even lost a few pounds and had been feeling pretty good for the Big Day.

Her healthy eating kick died the moment a horrible thunderstorm began to rage in Miami and the three of them were stuck in doors, though. Nate and Sully had offered to brave the weather and go buy "binge food" while they waited out the storm and watched movies.

Elena knew what it was like taking Nate grocery shopping, and wasn't all that surprised with the amount of food they brought back. Chips, pop, beer, cake, ice cream, and what she thought was a two pound jar of gummy bears.

Right now they were two movies into _The Mummy_ series and she was on her second slice of cake. Fortunately, the food was capturing Nate's focus instead of all the Hollywood inaccuracies around exploring old ruins and ancient Egyptian history happening on screen.

She had her feet wedged under Sully's legs at the opposite end of the couch, and Nate had claimed the floor space and coffee table in front of the television. Sully hadn't gotten to the cake yet, and was just nursing a beer. _Probably the healthiest choice out of all their purchases._

"This is really good," she mumbled around her food, then swallowed her bite of cake. "Where'd you guys go?"

Nate shrugged and shoved a massive piece of cheesecake into his mouth. "'e b'ry 'o l'e—"

"What?"

He cleared his throat after a moment and tried again. "That bakery you like. The one on 9th? And then the grocery store for the rest." He set down his fork and coughed, rubbing at the front of his neck.

"What's wrong?" she asked, but he waved her off. She shrugged and took another bite. "Well I'm gonna have to thank them in person for making this. This is the best cherry chees—"

"Cherry?" Sully asked her, eyes wide, then looked down at her husband. "What the hell's wrong with you, kid?"

"What?" He held up his fork in defense and coughed again. She frowned, seeing his eyes starting to water. "I just picked the one that looked good—"

"What's wrong with cherry?" she asked. Sully sighed and shook his head, setting his beer can down.

"You haven't told her?" Sully asked. "You're on your _second_ wedding and—"

"Wait— _what?"_ she repeated, glaring at Nate. He'd begun wheezing, and his face looked puffy. He set his plate down on the coffee table and coughed again, and she finally put it together. "Nate? Are you—you're allergic to cherries, aren't you?"

"Not—" he coughed again, this time doubling over. "Not—not _that_ b—"

She jumped off the couch, careful not to kick Nate, and grabbed her phone off the table. "Jesus _Christ_ , Nate," she muttered, dialling 911. Even if he said it wasn't serious, he had a habit of underestimating things. "Oh god, the weather will slow the—"

Sully grabbed her wrist from his seat on the couch. "Don't worry about it," he told her, voice entirely too calm.

"What?" She gestured at her husband, who was going red in the face. "Look at him! He's swelling up like a balloon!"

Sully sighed and pushed up off the couch. "You need it, kid?"

Nate gave him a shaky nod, looking like he was trying to breathe around a swollen tongue.

"Need _what?"_ Sully and Nate usually spoke to each other in some weird half-code that only the two of them understood, and she was glad they were so close, but— _god_ , it felt like she was going crazy sometimes when they were this uncomfortably light on details.

Sully wandered towards his jacket thrown over the chair in the kitchen and Elena deleted the half-typed emergency call, running towards the front hall bathroom and trying to remember what they had in the way of antihistamines. _Sully said don't call an ambulance, and he wouldn't just let Nate_ _ **die**_ _of an allergic reaction—right? It can't be that bad._

She pulled open the bathroom mirror door and shoved aside toothbrushes and deodorant to find something to help him. She quickly found some diphenhydramine and grabbed the whole bottle, slamming the cabinet door shut. She'd make him take a big swig and hope it would work well enough. _If he can get it down, that is. I hope his throat hasn't closed up._

When Elena bolted back into the living room, her heart beating wildly, she saw Sully leaning over a very puffy-looking Nate. He had a bulky yellow syringe in his hand and was brandishing it almost like a weapon.

He stabbed Nate in the thigh with it, who let out a small raspy yelp at the pain. Sully then helped to situate him up onto the couch, shoving the used syringe into his back pocket. "You okay, kid?"

It took about a minute, but the swelling and the puffiness seemed to be receding, and when Nate looked like he wasn't going to suffocate, he nodded and patted Sully's arm. "Yeah," he said, voice hoarse. "Yeah, I'm okay." His face was covered in splotches and his lips still looked red and swollen, but it was a hell of an improvement from before.

Now that he wasn't in immediate danger of dying from anaphylactic shock, her fear switched to anger. "What the _hell?"_ She fisted her hands and rested them on her hips, still carrying the bottle of benadryl. "Why do you guys do shit like this?"

"Like—" Nate coughed into his arm. "Like what?"

"Like maybe not tell me that you're extremely allergic to cherries?"

He shrugged, watching Sully pick up his deadly plate of cheesecake. "It hasn't really come up before."

"What if you'd—" She shook her head. "You know what? Nevermind. And why does _Sully_ have your EpiPen?"

Sully walked Nate's plate over to the kitchen, a wry grin on his face. "The kid lost it twice—"

"The second time was _not_ my faul—"

"So I held onto it for him," Sully continued at a louder volume, shooting Nate a look. "But I guess you should probably have it now."

"Probably," she muttered, shaking her head. Her heart was still racing, and she placed a hand over her chest. "God, you scared me, Nate."

"After all the crazy shit we've done, no way am I gonna die because of a piece of fruit," he said, waving a hand at Elena's plate, as if that was some sort of reassurance.

"I'd prefer if you didn't die at all," she said with a sigh, then went to the table and grabbed her own plate. "Guess we should throw this out now." _I'm going to miss you, cheesecake._

"No, you don't have to—"

"Do you want to have sex tonight?" she interrupted him, and his face sobered. "Because if you do, then I should stop eating this."

He hesitated, glancing between her and the plate. "I don't think my allergy is _that_ sensitive."

"Well I'd rather not risk it and have an ambulance take you away naked." She huffed and wandered towards the kitchen. "So, any other allergies or life-threatening medical conditions I should know about?"

Nate shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of."

"Not that I'm aware of," she repeated under her breath, heading to the garbage and scraping off the cake. "Goodbye, cheesecake."

After a moment of silence for her dessert, she looked up at Sully. "Can you give him some of that, please?" she asked, pointing to the benadryl bottle she'd set down on the counter. "It'll help keep the reaction down."

"I can take medicine all by myself, thank you," Nate said behind her, and picked up the bottle. "Doesn't this stuff make you drowsy?"

"Better than puffy, hm?"

He frowned. "I wanted to watch the rest of the movie."

Elena put her plate in the sink and gave him a measured look. " _Nate—"_ She opened a drawer and grabbed a teaspoon, thrusting it at him. "Drink up, buttercup. Two teaspoons, just to be safe."

He mumbled "fine" and twisted off the lid. Nate sulked while he gulped it down, making dramatic noises of distaste at the flavour.

"Shouldn't have bought the cheesecake," Sully said, sitting back down on the couch.

"You didn't notice it was cherry either," Nate shot back, then handed Elena the bottle and spoon.

She patted his arm and took the benadryl from him, tossing the sticky spoon in the sink. "Do you want ice cream instead?"

He heaved a big sigh. "Yeah, I guess."

Nate barely lasted the next twenty minutes, completely passed out on the carpet. His head was resting against her leg, his arm curled around her ankle. She threaded her fingers through his hair and sat back, watching Brendan Fraser fighting off pygmy mummies.

"Much easier to watch this when he's sleeping," Sully commented, looking drowsy himself.

She laughed, being careful not to disturb her husband. "It's a nice bonus," Elena agreed. "Will you, um, help me move him upstairs when the movie ends?"

Sully looked down at Nate, sighing. "I can try. He's heavy."

"So I've noticed."


	13. Game Plan

**Prompt: Nate and Elena discuss the logistics of beach house sex.**

* * *

 ***SPOILERS* for the end of Uncharted 4. I'll probably stop with the warnings soon, since it's been over a month since the game released, but I'll still tag them for now.**

* * *

"I kinda want to try having sex on this bench," Elena murmured into his shoulder, her fingers trailing down his arm.

Nate opened his eyes and pulled his head up off of the throw pillow, looking down at his wife. He hadn't really been sleeping, but they'd been lounging together under the gazebo while Sully and Cassie skipped rocks along the edge of the water. He frowned, repeating her sentence in his head again.

"Like right now?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not _now_ , unless you want to traumatise our daughter."

He chuckled at that and let his head fall back onto the pillow. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Those other times were all accidents," Elena corrected him, a smile in her voice. "At least now she knocks before entering any room of the house."

He tightened his arm around her and pressed his nose into her hair, interested in continuing the previous topic of conversation. "So when would you want to try this out, then?"

"I was thinking after Cassie went to sleep," she mused. "Well, went to her room, anyway. That girl stays up until dawn playing on her phone."

"I told you buying her that was a mistake," Nate chided, shaking his head. "She's glued to it."

"Yes," Elena began, grinning up at him. "Torture our daughter by keeping her in the Stone Age. We waited this long already, and her friends were teasing her constantly about not having one."

"She shouldn't bow to peer pressure," he said sternly, but his heart wasn't in it. He was loath to deny Cassie anything.

"She did pay for half," Elena reminded him. "And she's almost fifteen."

"With chore money. So _our_ money."

His wife snorted into his shirt. "You're becoming a grumpy old man, Nathan Drake."

He shifted on the cushions to get a better hold of Elena and pulled her in for a kiss. "Still young enough to have sex with you on this bench tonight."

Elena pulled back, brows raised. "So it's sealed, then? I'm getting laid in a few hours?"

"I mean technically we could go for a warm-up session in the house," he said, shooting a glance over at Sully and Cass. They were still whipping stones into the ocean, but they seemed to have gotten into a more serious conversation, abandoning their previously heated rock-skipping competition. "They probably wouldn't even notice if we left." They'd have to figure out how to distract Sully somehow once Cassie went to bed, but Sully generally knew when he was a third wheel and would usually excuse himself for a twenty-minute cigar break.

Elena shimmied down from her position on top of him to press a kiss to his neck, cutting off his musing. Her squirming was wondrous fuel for the indecent thoughts running through his head, though. "Twice in one night?" she murmured into his throat, and his focus began to fracture further. "Maybe we should invite Sully over to keep Cassie distracted more often."

"I know," he whispered hoarsely, his fingers digging into her hip. "Be like old times."

"We haven't had sex in the photo lab yet either," Elena continued, her mouth now at his collarbone. "Or the—"

"Why do you guys always _do_ that?"

He suppressed a groan at the interruption. They both looked up from their conversation to see Cassie doing a heartfelt impression of a disgusted teenager, frowning at them from her position down by the water. Sully for his part just shook his head, tossing the stone in his hand onto the sand.

"If we didn't, you wouldn't be here," Nate called back, and she began to make gagging noises.

"So freaking gross," she stage-whispered to Sully. "And it's like _all the time."_

"I've put up with it for years," Sully said back. "A lot longer than you, sweetheart."

"It's still nasty!" she moaned, her voice easily carrying up to the gazebo. Cassie rubbed at her arms and shivered, frowning up at the night sky. "C'mon Sully; I wanna go make some hot chocolate. And not have to watch _them,"_ she added, giving her parents a sidelong glance. Nate chose to repress the urge to say _you shouldn't speak to your parents like that_ in favour of letting their small audience leave posthaste.

"It's almost seventy-five degrees, kid. This ain't cold." Despite Sully's protests, he followed along anyway; Elena teased Nate about being wrapped around Cassie's finger, but Sully was the biggest sucker for their daughter out of all of them.

The two promptly began to argue about Fahrenheit and Celsius as they headed up the path to the house, like they always did when either of them brought up temperature, and Nate turned his attention back to his wife.

"So—bench, bedroom, photo lab," he surmised, raising a brow. "Is that the game plan, now that they're both going in the house?"

She laughed. "All tonight? That's a bit ambitious for someone your age."

"You think I can't handle it?"

"I think you'll feel it in your back in the morning," Elena warned him, but she looked immensely pleased with herself, and was already unbuttoning the front of her blouse. "But if you want to try…."


	14. Time-Honoured Traditions

**Prompt: Nate and Sam stay faithful to a long-standing family tradition, much to the dismay of everybody else (even Vicky).**

 **I like to prompt myself a lot.**

* * *

 ***SPOILER POLICE* - More end-of-game spoilers for Uncharted 4. After this chapter I think it's safe to say I don't need these any longer. Enjoy!**

* * *

It was seven in the morning.

That in itself was a crime—she was almost in her _fifties_ , and there was no reason for her to be up at such an early hour. The only blessing was that Sully was there to suffer alongside her, and they bonded over glaring at the rising sun out of the window while they sipped coffee in the kitchen.

The real sin, however, was that she'd been forcibly awakened by her husband, and not at all in a way that involved good morning kisses or breakfast in bed.

"Why do they always yell when they're together?" Elena muttered into her cup, spying Sam and Nate sitting in the living room. They were both having a heated argument in Spanish and pointing viciously at the television.

"Been like that forever," Sully said morosely. "Have no goddamn clue why they're so loud this early, though."

Beyond a sharp quip at them to tone it down, she hadn't really paid attention to their conversation either—they generally tended to have a lot of outlandish (and stupid) debates whenever an opportunity struck, and she was long past the point of picking sides or caring.

"One time they argued about those tiny paper cups we have in the bathroom," Elena said, casting an amused glance at Sully. "And for like a good twenty minutes, too."

"Sam's got fifteen years of dumb arguments to catch up on still," Sully replied, leaning on the counter. "At least they haven't started throwing punches."

She raised a brow. "Punches?"

He shrugged. "Usually they don't mean it. Nate just really likes being right."

She scoffed. "You can say that again." Elena looked at the TV screen from her position, wondering what today's debate was about. "Oh no," she murmured, instantly regretting her choice to investigate.

"What is it?"

"They're watching Indiana Jones," she whispered to Sully, who just sighed and shook his head.

She remembered loving the movies as a kid—watching them curled up on the couch with her dad, going to the theatres to see them on the big screen while eating overpriced popcorn, and then eventually begging her parents to buy them on VHS to watch on a rainy day. The adventure and the travel always intrigued her, and Harrison Ford had been a long-standing teenage crush of hers.

After spending years with Nate, however, and now his brother, Elena had grown to have a deep-rooted hatred of Indy and his archaeological exploits.

"You can't do that with a gun!" Nate barked, suddenly switching back to English, supposedly to widen his audience for all his well-worn criticisms. "You'd—"

"Break your index finger!" Elena finished for them, and they both jumped and looked over the couch at her. "Can you guys stop hate-watching that movie, please? Or at least do it at a _normal_ hour?"

"We can't control when it comes on," Sam replied, much too loudly. "This is a time-honoured family tradition."

"So I've learned," she deadpanned. "And it's on _Netflix_ , like I have said many times before. You don't need to wait around for the cable company to have it play."

The two brothers exchanged glances, apparently once again forgetting that technology has advanced past the nineties. She couldn't really fault Sam—his prison stint left him a bit behind on the times—but Nate had no excuse.

"So what's a normal time, then?" Sam asked after a moment of silence.

"Any time _after_ we get out of bed," Sully grumbled, taking a long pull of his coffee.

"You're out of bed n—"

"He meant _normally_ ," Elena interjected. "And I can't believe you guys haven't woken up Cassie yet."

"No, they have," came a tired mutter from down the hall, and their daughter appeared a moment later, hair frazzled and glasses not yet on. Vicky trotted along tiredly behind her, looking just as grumpy. "Are they watching Indiana Jones again?"

"Unfortunately," Elena replied. She jerked a thumb at the kettle. "I boiled some water in case you got up."

Cassie mumbled something sounding vaguely like "thanks" and shuffled over to grab a tin of tea leaves from the cupboard. Vicky went to nose around for food, and Elena waited for either her husband or her brother-in-law to defend themselves.

"They shouldn't make inaccurate movies then!" Nate cut in, and she suppressed a knowing grin.

"It's a classic movie. That's like hating Star Wars." Elena finished off her coffee and frowned at the empty cup. She would definitely need more caffeine to get through the rest of the morning.

"Yeah well I haven't seen Star Wars," Nate shot back, as if that was a valid argument.

Cassie looked up at that. "You haven't seen Star Wars? _I've_ seen Star Wars, and it's like fifty years older than me."

"Don't tell him to watch it," Sully warned. "They'll just ruin that one, too."

Eventually, they managed to pry Sam and Nate away from the living room (with profuse promises that yes, they could continue watching it _later,_ and Cassie would set up Netflix for them) to eat breakfast on the front deck. Despite Elena's initial grumpiness at waking up so early, she had to admit that seeing the rising sun turn the sky pink, purple and then blue over the ocean was calming. And now that there were no innacurate action movies playing to grind her husband's and her brother-in-law's gears, it was a lot less noisy.

Cassie sat down beside her, resting her head on her mom's shoulder and looking like she was going to fall asleep again. Elena carefully grabbed her daughter's cup of tea and set it down on the deck, then smoothed her frizzy hair down. "Why don't you go back to bed?" she said into the top of her head, pulling her close.

"Sam and Sully'll only be here for two more days," she mumbled back. "Gotta—" Cassie was interrupted by a monstrous yawn and covered her mouth. "Gotta get my time in before they leave again," she finished when she gained control of her jaw.

Elena combed her fingers through Cassie's hair, smiling. Maybe they'd go out for a ride on the boat today. Sully always parroted off some kind of Navy knowledge that they'd all heard several times before, and right now he was in the middle of teaching Cassie how to use the stars to navigate.

"Your dad never did listen to me when I tried to teach him," he'd always say, earning a glare from Nate and usually an argument of some kind. "So I'll let _you_ learn it instead, since you're a hell of a lot smarter, and then you can save your dad's ass when he gets lost."

"And plus," Cassie continued, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Dad said he's gonna buy tickets for India today, and I want to make sure he doesn't buy aisle seats for all of us like last time."

She laughed. "That reminds me," Elena said. "I have to talk with your principle again about the trip. We'll be gone for five weeks, and you _cannot_ miss that much work."

"You should just homeschool me already," Cassie complained. "I'm already weird enough to be a homeschool kid anyway."

"It's your father's fault," Elena whispered to her. "You got his weird gene."

They snickered together about Nate, watching him discuss the improbability of rats inhabiting ancient tombs with Sam in hushed tones. She also snuck the occasional glance at Sully, who was trying to sneak Vicky pieces of cheese from his eggs without being noticed.

She squeezed Cassie's shoulder, smushing her against her side. "I love you," she murmured into her daughter's hair.

Cassie looked up at her, momentarily confused, until her expression dissolved into a smile. "Love you too, mom," she whispered back, and snuggled deeper into her side. Cassie picked up her tead and took a big sip, letting out a contented sigh and looked back out towards the sea.

Elena sighed back at her, feeling just as happy. She might be up at an ungodly hour of the morning, but she sure as hell wouldn't trade it for anything.

* * *

 **AN: Just a quick note regarding these drabbles - I've gotten a few reviews asking to focus only on Elena/Nate. While I love them to pieces, this story is written for my own personal enjoyment (and hopefully you enjoy it too), so the chapters will be about whatever I'm inspired to write (whether through prompts I'm sent, prompts I find or my own brain). As soon as I begin to force myself to write certain things or avoid others, this will become work, which I absolutely don't want it to be. With that said, I understand that every chapter I write may not be everybody's favourite, but variety is the spice of life, and keeps this light and fun for me.**


	15. Saint Jude

**Prompt: from an anon on tumblr - "could you write some mutual pining fluff for nate and elena? before they were married :D thanks!"**

 **Set in between Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves.**

* * *

In lieu of lazy Saturday mornings, she had the company of her research.

Lazarević would be the story of her career. A war criminal wreaking havoc on Eastern Europe who was still claimed as a successful assassination attempt on official NATO records. He was linked to bombings, terrorist attacks and general misery throughout Slavic nations, and an all-around scumbag. He was backed by a private army, smaller terror organisations and high-profile criminals with a vested interest in the political turmoil his actions were having on the East.

If she exposed him to NATO, exposed him to the UN, she'd save thousands of lives—and potentially stop a war, if the tensions in the East were as bad as people were claiming. She didn't want fame, she just wanted the nightmares to stop. The research… it was difficult to go through at times. And she couldn't even imagine what the civilians of those countries were going through—who and what they'd lost because of that dangerous asshole.

So why, for fuck's sake, was she staring at an old doodle of Nate's she'd found tucked in her laptop case?

The paper was smudged with silver fingerprints from pencil lead. It was just a drawing of her apartment window, overlooking the city. He'd captured the small details of the nicknacks on her window, the peeling paint on the left side of the sill, and the slowly dying aloe vera plant sitting on the table next to the window—which was now totally dead. It took a lot to kill a cactus by not watering it, but she wasn't in her apartment a lot anymore.

A wet dot appeared on the paper, and she hastily wiped at her face and placed the doodle carefully on the bed beside her. It was stupid. They'd broken up weeks ago, and she needed to move on.

Nate wasn't a person she could have a future with. He was chronically incapable of thinking ahead; he was selfish and impulsive and tucked tail the minute she even brought up the semi-seriousness of their relationship.

He was, at best, a burn-out passionate fling to keep her distracted from the gruesome content of her work—a good lay to blow off steam. He couldn't be anything else, or else she's just end up horribly disappointed.

She wrapped her arms around herself, allowing a moment of self-pity. Elena had a few one-night stands, trying to see if she could sleep off the funk of their break-up, but all she'd done was just get a few insistent guys texting her too often about a next time and a not-inconsiderable loss of self-respect. She was better than fucking around with some douchey twenty-somethings in some jaded attempt to get back at Nate, damnit.

There was no remedy for it. She could call him up, ask if they could talk, maybe grab coffee and see where to go from there, but there was _no way in hell_ that _she_ would be the one making the first phone call. _He_ had fucked up, not her. _He_ needed to apologise for… for being so goddamn immature.

But hell would freeze over before he ever did that. _Fucking ego is as big as his head._

She slumped against the pillows, moaning into the fabric. Her bed had been way too spacious ever since she'd let him stay over. No way she was going to let a guy in like that again—not until she knew he was serious.

Nate had just been so hard to say no to, and _fuck_ if she didn't want him in here with her now, doodling angles of her apartment and making her coffee while she worked and holding her close when she woke up in a cold sweat from some injustice she'd been investigating for work. She hadn't realised how much space he'd filled until he'd left.

She swiped a hand across her face and sat up. "Stop it," she muttered, looking back towards the massive binder filled with photos and articles and snippets of information on Lazarević. "Catch this piece of shit, _then_ mope about Nate."

She could do that. She could herself pore into this, stay focused. The nightmares wouldn't stop, but she would refuse to reach towards his side of the bed for somebody who wasn't there. Not until she was through with this story.

* * *

He fumbled with his keys, trying to find the one for the front door. Why does he have so many keys?

It was three in the morning and he was still drunk. Claudia—he thought that was her name—hadn't let him stay at her place, so Sully's it was. It's been a chore to taxi all the way up here, but he had to get rid of his apartment for financial reasons, and he still felt that he was above sleeping on a park bench. _Haven't done that in a long time._

He managed to get a key jammed into the doorknob before he heard scraping from the other side, and a moment later Sully's face appeared—along with a lot of artificial light. He squinted and held a hand to his face.

"Jesus, kid, you're making a hell of a racket." He stepped aside and offered for Nate to come in, and he stumbled onto the threshold.

"Couldn't find the key," he muttered. He heard Sully wiggling his keys—he probably put the wrong key in—out of the door and hand them back to him. He shoved them in his pocket, and they stabbed into his thigh.

"Thought you were staying at that woman's place—Camilla or something?"

"Yeah, something like that," he replied, walking down the front hallway with a heavy hand on the wall. "Kicked me out the moment we stopped having sex."

"Ah," was all Sully said on the matter, his tone sympathetic. "Well go sit down. I'll get you some water and an aspirin."

He muttered something close to a thank-you and collapsed onto the old corduroy sofa the moment he got into the living room. Maybe he shouldn't drink rum anymore, either—he always picked up someone weird when he drank it.

He stared at the dark TV screen, trying to focus and convince himself he wasn't _that_ drunk when a glass of water appeared in front of him. "Drink the whole thing," Sully instructed. "Then I'll get you another."

"Aspirin?" he asked, taking a sip of water. Sully handed him two tablets, and he nodded. "You're a saint."

"I'm looking into being canonised," he replied, and sat down in his Lazy Boy.

"Patron Saint of drunk men."

"That's Saint Monica. She beat me to it."

"Is there a Patron Saint for one-night stands?" Nate finished off his water and tossed back the tablets. "Could be your angle."

"Lost causes, more like," Sully muttered, and grabbed the glass from Nate.

"That's Saint Jude."

"Right. Well," he sighed, and stood up to get more water. "You know where your old room is, and I'd appreciate it if you ate the food in the fridge so I don't have to throw it out. I'll be off to Iceland in a few days."

"Iceland?" he repeated. "What the hell's in Iceland?"

"A shit load of Viking artifacts waiting to be smuggled to Spain," Sully called from the kitchen, his voice muffled by the sound of the tap running.

Nate laughed. "Sounds profitable. You got any room for a plus-one?" That's what he needed. A good job like that to get his head back in straight. He'd been running on fumes for longer than he wanted to admit. Not having to worry about rent payments for a few months would be a nice change of pace.

"Thought you wanted to stay in the States in case Elena called," Sully replied when he came back into the living room.

Well, shit. He'd been doing really well with the whole "don't think about her" thing, too.

"She won't call," he muttered, good mood instantly gone, and grabbed the glass back from Sully. "Can we please not talk about this now?"

"Maybe you should call _her_ then," he said, ignoring Nate. "You've been in a damn mood ever since—"

"I'm going to bed," he interrupted, placing the glass of water down on the table harder than necessary. "Thanks for the aspirin."

"Nate—" Sully followed him towards the stairs, and he shot a glare back at his friend.

"I'm not calling her. She was pretty clear on where we stood. And what the hell do you know about relationships, anyway?"

"A lot more than you, apparently." Sully leaned on the wall, watching Nate wobble up the stairs. "She's a good girl. I'm sure if you just _try,_ Nate, you can fix—"

"Goodnight, Sullivan," he said loudly, and then the conversation was, thankfully, over. What the hell was Sully's problem, anyway? It wasn't any of his business.

Nate shoved open the door to his room, reaching for the lamp next to the bed and yanking the chain until the bulb lit up. His room was entirely untouched, preserved for whenever, well, shit like this happened.

He kicked off his shoes, leaving them in the middle of the floor, and fell onto the mattress, grabbing at his head. The booze was starting to wear off, but usually taking a few aspirins before going to bed helped with the hangover.

He kicked at the blankets until they were out from under him, and then pulled them up around his shoulders. Then he reached for the lamp, and the room went dark.

That way, he couldn't see that she wasn't really sleeping next to him, and he could still pretend that the sound of his own breathing was just drowning out her's. She always was a quiet sleeper.

Nate grabbed the extra pillow and hugged it against himself, allowing a moment of undignified moping. No one could see him, anyway.

He wouldn't call her. She wasn't the kind of person he could just _have a thing_ with. Elena was an old-fashioned serious kind of girl. The sex had been fantastic and the travelling had been great, but she didn't get it. His kind of work didn't mesh well with a stable relationship, and forcing one into where it didn't fit—well, he saw how that ended up.

He couldn't be what she wanted him to be, and it was her fault for getting her hopes up. He wasn't anybody but himself.

It would have never worked. Maybe if he kept telling himself that, the ache in his chest would leave him the fuck alone.


	16. The Jewel Heist

**Prompt: Cassie shows her father how complicated playtime can be.**

 **Inspired by sshepardss's amazing art of Nate, Cassie and Vicky playing together.**

* * *

Nate surveyed the party from his seat at their table, assessing angles, possible obstacles and problem guests, and making sure he had a direct line of sight on his target, who was only sitting ten, maybe fifteen feet away from him.

"Vicky!"

He looked back to the other occupants of his table. Cassie was diving for the dog, who was seated at the foot of the table on the big chair from the living room. Cassie readjusted the paper crown tied to the animal's head, which she had been attempting to remove with a paw. Vicky gave him a pleading look, but suffered through her owner's fondling. "You have to keep your outfit on."

Vicky, for her part, did nothing more than chuff in complaint. Nate had to give the dog kudos; Cassie was prone to dressing up just about anyone who complied, and this was one of the less ridiculous costumes the dog had been subjected to over the years.

"There," his daughter murmured when the crown was back in place, and patted the dog on the head, which earned her a half-hearted tail wag. Then Cassie turned back to him and handed him a cookie. It had been on the floor longer than was probably polite to give to someone, but he grabbed it from her and murmured his thanks.

"Okay," she continued. "Do you know the plan?"

Nate nodded. "Vicky's the entry man. I'm the waiter, and you—"

"Are the jewel thief," she whispered, grinning at him. "You have to go talk to Teddy and offer him food," she explained, pointing to the tuxedoed bear leaning against the window sill, who appeared to be engaged in serious discussion with Gregor the Giraffe. "Welcome him to the party, and then—" she leaned close, tiny hands braced on the table so she could whisper in his ear. "Steal his keys."

"Then I hand them to Vicky," Nate continued, looking towards the dog, who huffed and laid her head on the table in answer. "And she'll unlock the main door for you and get you past security."

"And at last, I will sneak into the vault." Cassie pulled out a map of their house from her pocket and placed it on the table, indicating her parents' room, which was clearly drawn in blue crayon. "To grab the treasure."

Nate whistled in approval. "Solid plan. But... what about the guards?" He pointed to the laundry room. "Mom—sorry, _Ms. Fisher_ —might hear you." Elena's designated playtime name was _Ms. Fisher_ , something that amused both her and Cassie to no end.

Cassie frowned and tapped her chin. "Um… we could knock her out!"

Nate bit his lip. "I don't know if that would go over well." He reached behind him to the table beside the couch and grabbed the plastic bottle labelled JUICE, waving it in front of his daughter. "How about I distract miss Fisher, ask if she needs a drink, while you unlock the vault?"

Cassie clapped her hands. "Good idea!" She grabbed her notebook and scribbled something inside—probably his additions to her heist operation—then snapped it shut. "Ready to do this?"

Nate stood up from his seat and held out the cookie like he would a serving platter, making sure his apron was on straight. _"Born_ ready."

* * *

Elena tossed the last of the dark load in the washing machine and cranked on the cycle, humming to herself. Looking idly at Nate's list on the blackboard as she put away the newly-folded towels, she made a mental note that they had to stop at the store today for more dog food. _That animal goes through a bag a week, I swear._

She was almost finished putting away the clean towels when she felt an arm around her waist, and grinned. "Could I interest you in some wine, madame?" Nate murmured behind her, and she heard liquid sloshing around a plastic container.

Elena laughed and looked over her shoulder, and then her eyes went wide when she saw what her husband was wearing. "What are y— _oh_ my god, Nate, what—"

Nate pressed a finger to her lips and crowded her against the dresser. "Shh. I'm supposed to be distracting you while Cassie steals the jewels." His mouth was against her ear, and she shivered at the brush of his lips. It was difficult to be seduced by a man wearing a pink apron and swimming trunks, but Nate seemed to be managing splendidly despite his disadvantage.

"It's a jewel heist this time?" she asked. Play time with Cassie usually involved grand plots, but this was new. "Teaching her about the family business early, I see."

"It was her idea, not mine." Nate took a step back and held out a jug of peach juice to her, motioning to it with his free hand. "This is our drink of the night, miss. It's called _jus de épicerie,_ aged one week in an organic fridge."

She laughed. "Sounds wonderful. So, are you the waiter?" She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, doing her best to sound like a breathy party guest.

"I prefer _serveur,_ madame. We are in Le Havre, after all. _Est-ce que vous parlez français?"_

She wrapped an arm over his aproned hip and smiled up at him. " _Un peu, mais suffisamment."_ Elena tugged on a frill of his apron and pulled him closer. "And it's _tu parles,_ Mister Drake. You can be familiar with me."

Nate's mouth found its way to her ear again, and he started whispering things no waiter should say to guests at a fancy house party. She grinned, pressing her face into his shoulder and tracking a hand towards the knot holding the apron around his waist.

He stopped whispering in her ear then, much to her disappointment, and reached behind himself and grabbed her wrist, halting her fingers. " _Non, madame._ Our plan is still in progress. I can't break character yet." Nate's eyes dropped to her mouth, his smile widening. "After the payout, though…."

"Psst!"

They both looked towards the laundry room door, and she saw Cassie's lone eye peeking out from behind the frame. Nate quickly held up his hands to cover Elena's ears so she couldn't hear their conversation and leaned down to his daughter. "Did you get the jewels yet?" he whispered.

She nodded and crooked a finger. "Come on, I want to show you," she whispered back, and then disappeared, probably back to the main party.

When Cassie was out of range, he let his hands drop, and Elena gave him an amused glance. "I didn't hear anything, so your distraction worked," she said, then adjusted his apron, which had gone crooked from their fondling.

Nate nodded, his expression mock-serious. "Good. We won't have to knock you out, then."

She raised a brow. "Oh, so that was Plan B if your distraction didn't work?" Granted, it would have been hard for Nate _not_ to be distracting in his current get-up, but still….

"Originally Plan A, but we negotiated." He extracted himself from their embrace and gave her a bow. " _Adieu, madame._ We can discuss after-hours activities once our business is concluded."

Elena bit her lip to keep from laughing, and curtsied back. "I look forward to it, _serveur."_


	17. Constellations

**Prompt: Some souvenirs are more difficult to hold onto than others.**

 **Set after Among Thieves.**

* * *

They're big. And red. And kinda bumpy.

The mirror in the hotel room isn't as clean as it probably should be, but she's scared to wipe the hairspray and fingerprints and dust off the glass. At least this way there's some sort of barrier between her and her reflection.

Elena knows that it's only been a week since they left Nepal, and she sometimes likes to delude herself into think she doesn't care that much about her appearance, but… her scars are _ugly._ It's not like she thought they'd clear up in an instant, and getting a bunch of shrapnel lodged into you is a pretty serious injury….

"But they're _ugly,"_ she repeats aloud, twisting around to see the extent of the damage. There's a smattering of pockmarks mostly down her left side, starting at her shoulder and moving all the way down her stomach, a few even curling towards her back, over her hip, and then down her leg. Some marks are tiny, ones she knows will heal and clear up, but others…. There's a particularly troubling one marring the skin of her left breast, disrupting the shape of her nipple at one edge, and she doesn't think that one will go away.

It isn't enough that they burn like hell whenever she moves, or puts clothes on, or takes a shower or does _anything._ It's not enough that she hasn't really slept that well since Harry decided to try and drag them all down to Hell with him. It's not enough that Jeff _died_ because of her.

The horrific scars were just the icing on her giant cake of self-pity.

"No more two-pieces," she mutters, poking at her abdomen, and the thought upsets her enough to make her eyes blur with tears. She's lucky she's alive—God, she could have _died—_ and now she's crying about the way her skin might look in a bikini _._

 _Get a grip._

It doesn't really help that she can't look away from the mirror. The more she stares, the more she sees. Tiny cuts pulling at her skin, making it look shiny and patchy and discoloured as an angry pink. Individually the small marks are nothing—they could even be passed off as chicken pox scars, but bunched all together like this… if she took a sharpie to her skin, she could map out constellations.

 _Fuck you, Flynn. Fuck you for making me cry about this._ _And fuck you for messing up my boob._

"Elena?"

She doesn't have time to grab a towel to cover her body—the bathroom door is already open, and she's glaring over her bare shoulder at Nate.

"Oh—hey, I'm sorry—"

"Why didn't you knock?" she grinds out, silently daring him to look away from her face.

He shakes his head and grabs a robe hanging off the door. "I did, a few times," he says, handing it to her, which she quickly uses to cover her patchy, shiny, _ugly_ scars. "You didn't answer. I thought—" He makes a grab at the air, trying to find a way to finish his sentence. "I was just worried."

She pulls the rope around the waist of the robe tight, looking away. "Well I'm fine."

"You're crying," he murmurs, reaching out to touch her face before retracting his hand. They haven't really touched a lot since they left Nepal. She's been too exhausted and… well, they just haven't gotten there yet.

"It's fine," she repeats, wincing at how weak her own words sound. Nate's been treating her like a porcelain doll ever since her injury, and she'd rather not give him more cause to act that way.

"Do you—"

"Please go away," she murmurs. She can't see him, her head ducked down— _coward_ —but she knows there's a hurt look on his face. "I'll be out soon."

"Alright," he whispers, and _god_ she can hear the guilt and the worry in his voice. "I'll just—be in my room."

She nods, not trusting herself to speak, and hears the door close. Elena lets out a shuddering breath and looks back at the white panel door. Nate's taking this whole thing on himself, being a dumbass and shouldering the blame for Harry's actions. She doesn't nearly have the emotional energy to deal with that mess right now, though. _You can barely look at yourself in the mirror without crying._

Elena pulls the robe back again, wanting just one more look, as if to prove herself wrong. Maybe—maybe it wouldn't be too bad. She's still pretty young, and maybe her skin will bounce back and the cuts and the patchiness will fade with time. _Or maybe you're going to have to live with burn and shrapnel scars all down the side of your body for the rest of your life and deal with it._

She almost wants to call her dad. He's always been there when she hurt herself as a kid, patching her up in the bathroom with bandaids and foamy disinfectant. She'd mispronounce the names of the sprays and the bandages in their first aid bag and he'd smile and sound out the words with her.

Elena knows she can't. Her parents know about the nature of her job—they have a vague idea about how dangerous it is, and the last thing she needs is to be read the riot act on the phone about being more careful when all she really wants is someone to tell her it's going to be _okay._

So in lieu of crying to her dad, she changes into pajamas that don't showcase her skin, brush her teeth and climb into bed. She doesn't see Nate on her walk to her room, and she doesn't really fall asleep staring up at the ceiling fan above her bed.

But it's better than staring at herself, at least.


	18. Tumblr Prompts Ahoy

**Tumblr Prompts Ahoy**

 **These are all from small writing prompts on tumblr, and since they're too short to post as individual chapters, I'm shoving them all into one chapter. Enjoy!**

* * *

 **69\. "Why the hell are you bleeding?"**

 **For beltsquid on tumblr.**

* * *

"Why the hell are you bleeding?"

Nate looked just as startled as she did, and tossed the stuffed bear away from him as if it were a grenade. "I, uh - I don't really know." He sucked on his index finger, which had a significant cut on the first knuckle, and glared at the toy.

"No, I mean - It's a _bear,"_ Elena continued, picking up the stuffed animal off the couch with the hand not holding Cassie's. The little girl reached for it, but she shushed her daughter. If _Nate_ managed to injure himself with it, there was no telling what state Cassie would end up in by playing with it. "That's not even - it's a _stuffed toy."_

"I was _trying_ to remove the tags," he explained around his bleeding knuckle. "We should return it. It's not child-proof."

"It's got your blood on it now, so that might be a problem." She turned the bear around, inspecting it for any other potential hazards. "Here - _you_ take Cassie, and _I_ will make sure it's safe." She handed off their daughter to her husband and shook her head.

"Be careful," Nate called as she headed to the kitchen. "It might attack you. And can you get me a bandaid?"

* * *

 **58\. "I'd die for you. Of course, I'd haunt you in the afterlife but really, it's the thought that counts."**

 **For a lovely anon.**

* * *

Nate and Sully drunk on wine was always an experience.

Elena finished off her second glass and watched the two of them wax poetic. She had half a mind to record them, use the material to write some sappy novel. Maybe she'd become an author and move on from journalism - she certainly had enough inspiration to work with.

"I'm so glad you two finally figured this whole marriage thing out," Sully began, clapping a wobbly hand on Nate's shoulder, who smiled into his glass. "Even if it means we can't break into any more museums together - or smuggle shit over European borders."

"That doesn't - _doesn't_ mean I still don't love you Sully. I've just found someone else." Nate waved a hand to Elena, who smiled at them. "I'd still _die_ for your old ass." He emptied his drink and laughed at something. "I mean, I'd haunt you for the rest of your life, but - "

"That's sweet kid, and I'd - "

"You want me to leave you two alone?" she cut in, and they both looked at her in confusion. "You guys aren't going to make love or anything, right?"

"Elena, this is _serious,"_ Nate said with a frown. "Sully needs to know about all the dubious crimes I'd commit to save him."

"Ah," she replied, trying to keep a sober expression. "Of course. Please continue."

Nate nodded sagely and turned back to his mentor-slash-sort-of-father. "Anyway, larceny and bribery are at the top of the list, of course…."

* * *

 **82\. "This is all your fault! I can't believe I listened to you!"**

 **For a lovely anon.**

* * *

"Kid, listen to me - "

"No!" Nate wiped at his face, shiny from tears and rage, and leaned heavily against the doorframe of his room. "No - this is _all_ your damn fault! I should've - should've told her - "

"You can't control what other people do, Nate." Sully reached for his cigar tin, but stopped himself. After. He'd have one after. Smoking only made the kid more enraged. "We were in Belgium for five months, and you two weren't even - "

"I was _going_ to ask her out, but you told me to wait _after_ Belgium!" The kid looked ready to punch something. Heartbreak was a hell of a drug. "And now she's dating someone!" He grabbed at his hair and pulled at the ends, shoulders hunched inwards. "I thought - I thought I _loved_ her! I can't believe I listened to you!"

Sully closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, kid. I thought - "

"I don't care what you thought! You told me it would be okay!" His breath came out in harsh huffs, and Nate turned to shove open his door. "Now I _can't - "_ The rest was cut off by the door slamming.

It was Sully's turn to lean against the wall. There wasn't anything he could do - Nate was only nineteen. He'd get over the girl. He'd be in a foul mood for a while, but he'd heal from it.

Didn't make Sully feel any better about it, though.

* * *

 **86\. "I guess dying with you isn't the worst way to go."**

 **For strugglingbutstillfighting on tumblr.**

* * *

Nate thought staring down the barrel of a pistol was the scariest thing he could go through, but waiting to be executed was much, much worse.

Sully was beside him, but he wasn't talking much. There was a lot of blood on the ground, between the two of them, but Sully had taken the worst of the beatings.

"God damn Americans," Sully muttered, and Nate looked at him - well, as much as he could without aggravating his dislocated shoulder. "Think they own the place."

"We're both American."

"Don't remind me." Sully coughed and looked towards the cell door. "Think they'll let us go if we tell them?"

Nate laughed, then grabbed at his bruised ribs. "We'll be dead in less than twenty-four hours for destroying their boat, so it's not like they can threaten to kill us if we try."

Sully shared some grim laughter with him, and Nate settled against the wall of their cell. "You know," he began. "Sister Grace always told me I'd die young."

Sully frowned. "A nun told you that?"

"Yeah. Told me to clean up my act, otherwise I'd end up like - well, like this," he said, motioning to them and their general situation. He was scared shitless, but he couldn't think of a better time to get sappy - or at least brutally honest - with the old man.

"At least - "

"At least what?"

"At least I'll get to see Sam again." They hadn't talked about Sam once since he'd died four years ago, but they were both gonna be shot in the morning, and no one could here them anyway.

Sully was quiet for a moment, and then wheezed out something that might've been a chuckle. "I don't think you'll find your brother in Heaven."

"Who said anything about Heaven?" Nate looked towards the ceiling. "I'm following Sam straight down below. I've broken way too many laws for Him to just forgive it all," he mused, pointing to the sky.

"Could always buy your forgiveness," Sully suggested. "Isn't that what they used to do in the old days?"

"Too bad I don't have any money. And it'd take a _lot_ to buy a ticket to the Gates."

Sully chuckled again and patted Nate's knee, one of the few places that wasn't broken or bruised. "You know, kid, I'd rather be anywhere else, but at least dying with you isn't the worst way to go. We can keep each other company in Hell."

"Glad to be of service," Nate replied and closed his eyes. "It's too bad we never got around to that trip to Belfast. Would've loved to see Ireland."

"I'm regretting our last meal being McDonald's," Sully added. "Or that I didn't have another cigar. Could really go for one right now."

"I haven't been laid in a while either," Nate lamented. "If we somehow get out of this, I'm blowing all my nonexistent money on hookers in Amsterdam."

"I'm with you on that, kid." Sully shifted in his spot on the floor, trying to get comfortable. "I think I might have a nap. Wake me when we're about to die if I'm not up."

"Roger that," Nate muttered, and scooted closer to his friend. It was damn cold in their cell, and he was going to really miss Sully soon.

* * *

 **AN: There is one more prompt that is way too NSFW to put in this story (and again too short to post on its own), so here is the butchered link to the prompt should anyone be interested: el-goddamn-dorado . tumblr** **post / 147207771822 / idk-if-youre-still-doing-this-but-nateelena**

 **(There's also a working link on AO3 if you wanted a proper one, since FF hates links)**


	19. Old Bets

**AN: This was inspired by gone-fission's prompt on tumblr and Summing Secret's request here on FF. Enjoy!**

* * *

"Cassandra!"

Cassie looked up from her comic book and exchanged a concerned glance with Vicky. Dad had just called her by her full name. _Shit, is this about my room again? They're ones to talk—mom is_ _ **so**_ _messy—_

"Cassandra _Samantha_ Drake—"

"Coming, coming!" She tossed her comic at Vicky and bolted towards the source of her father's voice, then cringed internally when she saw he was standing by her TV. She'd set up the PS for him to play earlier, but he looked _really_ mad, and she doubted it was about the game.

"Did, uh, did the PlayStation crash again?" she asked, doing her best to look innocent. Her dad's face was scrunched in what was quickly approaching outrage, and her comment didn't help matters much. "I can reset everything—"

"What the hell is this?" He pointed at the TV, and she looked at the game-over screen.

"Um…." She squinted at the screen from her position in the doorway and adjusted her glasses, trying to figure why he was so angry. "You died? Did the controller stop working?"

"No— _this,"_ he said, pointing at the high score. "Did you do this?"

"Yeah," Cassie replied warily, her response sounding more like a question.

"How?"

She frowned. "I just… did it? I was playing last week when we had that big storm and beat the score—"

"But _how?"_ His expression went from angry to despondent, and he set the controller down on the ground in defeat. "I… I can't believe this."

She didn't really know how to respond to that, so she reached over to give him a pat on the shoulder. "It's alright—"

"Seventeen years," he whispered, looking at the screen again. "I have been trying to beat this dumb fox game for _seventeen years,_ Cassandra." He rubbed at his face. "Do you know how many bets I've lost to Elena over this game? How many loads of laundry and dishes I've done because of this jackass?" He pointed at Crash, as if the bandicoot was at fault for his performance.

 _Oh._

Dad generally wasn't great at games—she and mom beat him at just about anything he had the courage to challenge them to—but this was a new low for his gaming career. Cassie didn't have the heart to tell him she'd really beaten mom's score a year ago, and had just beaten _that_ high score last week.

"Please don't tell your mother," Dad said suddenly. He turned and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her for emphasis. "Promise me."

Ah. This was turning out to be a _very_ good conversation, after all.

She grinned and crossed her arms. "It'll cost you."

He switched back to angry again."What?"

"I could erase the save and just get mom's score again," she reasoned. "Pretend nothing happened. That might take a while, though. Silence isn't cheap."

"Jesus, you sound just like Sully." He shoved a hand through his hair and stared at the wall. "And you shouldn't be making backroom deals with your dad, anyway."

"You were the one who went all Angry Dad Voice on me," she argued. "You used my _middle_ name—I'm still suffering from the emotional stress." She pressed a hand to her forehead to get her point across.

He rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. What do you want?"

 _Bingo._

She placed her hands on her hips and smiled sweetly at him. "I wanna come to Antarctica with you guys."

"What? No way, we already talked about this—"

"Well then I guess mom will know your deep dark secret—" She turned on her heel and took a few determined steps out of her room before he grabbed her wrist.

"Wait a minute!" He pulled her back into the room, looking worried again. "Anything but Antarctica. I'll never convince Elena without having to tell her why."

Cassie tapped her lip, thinking. "Then can I have a new surfboard?"

"Okay, that is just _blackmail—"_

" _You_ were the one who gave me carte blanche on the choices here—"

"I did not; you didn't give me a chance to clarify—"

"You can't back out of this now—"

" _What_ are you two arguing about?"

They both turned to see Mom standing in the hallway. She looked like she'd just come out of the water, with damp hair and a towel in her hand.

Cassie looked to her dad, who seemed to be struggling with how to respond. She didn't want to lose this opportunity to get something out of Dad's shameful secret, but he wasn't really handling the Mom Stare very well.

Plus, well, she kinda wanted to know what sort of bets he lost.

"I beat your score on Crash," Cassie blurted.

A giant grin spread across her mother's face, and she raised a blonde brow. "Oh _really?_ What's the score now?"

"Thirty-eight hundred and change," she said as casually as she could, trying to avoid her dad's glare.

"That's interesting," she replied. "Did you hear that, Nate? Thirty _-eight_ hundred."

"And seventy-two," Cassie added.

"And seventy-two," her mom repeated.

"Technically I still haven't lost _this_ bet yet," her dad said behind her. "Cassie beating it wasn't part of the deal."

"Oh no. You're exact words were 'the next time you open up the game, your score finally isn't going to be there anymore—"

"Well you haven't actually _seen_ the score yet, so I still haven't lost."

A few things happened as soon as her dad said that. One, her mom suddenly made a mad dash for Cassie's room; Dad yelled a rather dramatic " _no!",_ and Vicky came barrelling down the hallway barking her head off.

She narrowly avoided her parents colliding into each other by sidestepping, and grabbed Vicky's collar to stop her from jumping on them. With the amount of grunting and struggling they were doing, she chose to stay outside of her room for the time being.

"Let me _go,_ Nate—"

"This is cheating—"

"You suck at making bets—"

"You suck at _winning_ them fairly—"

Her mom's sandaled foot stuck out from the doorway, and then the rest of her joined the foot in the hallway as Dad carried her towards the front door.

"Let me _go!"_ She was slung over Dad's shoulder, who was moving towards the front door with impressive speed.

"I'm stopping you from cheat— _ow._ Get your foot out of—"

"Get your _hands_ off my legs—"

"Not unless—"

"Nate—!"

Their words dissolved into a shouting match on the front porch, and then became even less coherent as her dad walked down the path towards the beach.

Cassie sighed and slumped against the wall, giving Vicky another look. "They're _crazy,"_ she whispered.

Vicky sneezed in response, and she patted the dog's head. "Come on," she continued and pushed away from the wall, gesturing for Vicky to follow. "I want lunch, and I think they might be a while." Plus, she wanted to stay out of the war zone in case her mom managed to escape Dad's hold.

Sure enough, as she was spreading peanut butter over her second sandwich, her mom sped past the kitchen in a blonde blur, followed frantically by her father.

"Elena! Elena, we _talked_ about this—"

"Oh! I _saw_ it! I saw it, I saw the score! You officially owe me _big time_ , Nathan Drake!"

"No, no no no—that is not—that was _not_ the bet—"

"I will _read_ you the terms of the bet—"

"You wrote them _down?"_

"Because I knew this would happen. You said that…."

Cassie dug her earphones out of her pocket and happily shoved them in her ears, then selected the loudest song she could find on her phone, and went back to making her sandwich.

She still wasn't going to Antarctica—which was up for more negotiation, if she timed it right—but she _did_ have an excellent story for Sully and Sam the next time they came to visit. Judging by how extreme Dad's reaction was to the high-score, and the fact that he hadn't beaten it in almost two decades, this was _definitely_ dirt worthy of sharing.


	20. Only Fools

**AN: Just again wanted to say how floored I am by all the reviews and faves and views this story is getting - I adore all of them, and do a little jig whenever I get an email notifying me about a review or fave. Thanks so much, and enjoy!**

* * *

 _Elena Drake._

She rolled the name around in her mind, testing it out. It wasn't anything official, of course—she chose to keep her own name, just as Nate had chosen to change his so many years ago, but it still lingered in the back of her mind, if only because of what it represented.

As of an hour and twelve minutes ago, she and Nate were married. She was a wife now, and the title carried so much more weight to it than she thought possible.

It was… surreal. Nate's proposal had come almost out of nowhere, only a week ago in Sully's house while they'd been watching some discovery channel program about prairie dogs, and out of nowhere she found herself saying _yes, god, yes_ with a conviction that surprised her.

They were in a bar now somewhere in South Carolina, in a town she couldn't remember the name of. Sully was trying to weasel some free drinks out of the bartender—for the newlywed kids, you see. Can't you see how happy they are?—and Nate was trying his best to look sober beside her. They'd blown through the small stockpile of alcohol Sully had given them as a wedding gift, and now that they were dead set on getting trashed, stumbling into here had seemed like a good idea.

Elena cased the place from her position at the counter. It was a restaurant-bar-club-pub mish-mash kind of establishment, with a little bit of everything to offer. There were big leather booths for some serious drunk conversation, faux-fancy low-lighting to give off some semblance of class should anyone decide to order food, and a lonely-looking dance floor with a dusty old jukebox sitting in the corner.

Bingo.

"Come," she said, tugging on Nate's sleeve, and he followed after her with a grin on his face. There were a few flashing lights around the edges of the dance floor, giving her an impression of bright primary colours and old, hot light bulbs.

She felt like she was in college again, out drunk with a guy and high off the immediateness of it all—no thinking about the stress of tomorrow or next week or even the next hour, because _now_ was so brutally in-focus. The smell of the bar and Nate's smile and the warmth of his skin and the pleasant heaviness in her head were all she cared about right now—and, of course, digging quarters out of her pocket to bring the jukebox to life.

"So, Nathan Drake," she said to him over the white noises of the bar. "What song will we dance our first married dance to?"

He stood beside her and frowned at the jukebox screen. She scrolled through the options, trying to find something slow and sappy and oh-so-romantic, because improvised romance was the flavour of the night and she only had like seven quarters.

"Hey wait, wait wait," he said, poking at the screen. "Go back up. What's that one?"

" _Can't Help Falling In Love?"_ she asked, raising a brow. Nate had never shown a great interest in music, especially the kind she liked, but maybe he was a secret classic rock nerd.

"Yeah, that sounds romantic, right?"

She frowned at him. " _Please_ tell me you know who wrote this song."

"Uh…"

Or maybe not. "Wow. Divorce time already," she muttered. "But this is a good choice." She read off the price and shoved a bunch of quarters into the machine, then clicked on the song.

The dance floor only had a few people shuffling around on it, and they claimed a vacant corner of the floor. When Elvis began playing on the speakers overhead a few moments later, Nate grabbed her hand and slid his arm around her waist, and they started a slow, half-rhythmic sway that was vaguely in time with the song.

Elena slipped her free hand around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and letting the music and the smokey smell of the bar and the warmth of Nate sink in.

She'd never really dreamed about weddings, her own or anyone else's, but Elena always had a vague outline in her brain about what it would probably look like, and _this_ , drunk in a strange bar and listening to Elvis with a thief wasn't anything remotely close to hitting the mark.

Nate's lips brushed against her ear, making her shiver. "Hey," he murmured, so quiet she could barely hear him.

"Hey," she mumbled back against his shoulder, and snuck a peek at him. The whiskey made his cheeks all flushed and his eyes bright, and in the dim light with his features cast in sharp relief, he looked almost sad.

"I love you," he whispered.

She bit her lip. Elena could count on one hand the number of times Nathan Drake had said those words to her, and he'd just hit finger number three.

"I love you, Nate," she said back, again with a fierce conviction that bubbled up seemingly out of nowhere. But god, did she ever love him, and that's why she was here, right?

He smiled at her, and the sad shadow passed from his face. She paused in their swaying—it wasn't really dancing—to stand on her tiptoes to reach his lips, and he bent down to meet her halfway. The kiss was a bit clumsy, the both of them drunk, and tasted like cheap whiskey, but it was _theirs_ , and all the grand hypotheticals of wedding gowns and big cakes faded away, because this was _real_ , with him, and she couldn't possibly want for anything different.

* * *

 **AN: I know that they have a big huge traditional wedding on a beach, but I always felt that the wedding photos in UC4 were from a second wedding they had post-Uncharted 3 when they committed to having a normal life, and that there first one (the one I've written about) was spur-of-the-moment and fairly informal.**


	21. Tabletops

Going into stores with Nate was always a unique experience; going into _bookstores_ was a day-long affair. Her boyfriend had an unshakeable paper fetish, and after an hour of being in the store she still hadn't grabbed the book she needed.

She was making good headway towards the front counter when Nate stopped in front of her—again—and poked at the knick knacks on a nearby display table.

"Nate—"

"What the heck is this thing?" In his hands was a clear plastic box no bigger than a few inches around; inside was a heavy-looking stone die, with numbers painted on its many faces in thick white acrylic. "It's got numbers all over it."

"It's a d-twenty," she explained, gently nudging him to keep moving.

"Oh. Weird." He placed the die box back down on the counter and then paused, _still not moving,_ and frowned. "Wait, what?"

"It's a twenty-sided die—"

"No no no." He immediately picked the box back up and shook it at her. "You said _d-twenty."_

"Yeah, so?"

His eyes were getting wider by the moment, as if on the cusp of some grand conclusion. "Regular people don't call dice d-twenties. _That's_ what this is?" He rattled the container again.

"Tons of people—"

"Elena." His voice was low as he leaned towards her. "Have you played dungeons and dragons before?"

She rolled her eyes and shoved him away. "I played a few tabletops in college—"

"Oh my _god."_ He grabbed her by the arms. "How? You are _way_ too attractive to play dungeons and dragons—"

She scoffed. "Nate, plenty of people play D&D. I dated a _very_ attractive dwarven cleric back in college."

"Oh my god," he repeated. "Oh my _god."_

"Why are you freaking out?" He was getting somewhat loud in the store by this point, and more than one person had cast a wary glance at them.

"Because you're a giant _nerd,"_ he whispered. "I had no _idea_ , Elena. _No idea."_

She rolled her eyes and waved him off, not bothering to mention his borderline neurotic obsession with history and settle the score on who was the _actual_ nerd. "Please put the die back. We only came here for a book." A book she hadn't even managed to ask an employee about yet, and at this rate she wouldn't be asking for a while.

He shook the clear container holding the die again, hearing it clack around against the plastic. "Let's do a mini session right now," he insisted, waggling a brow at her and ignoring her insistence to get something productive done _s_.

"Oh really? Like what?"

"Can you have sex in dungeons and dragons?"

She let out a snort. "You're suggesting we have sex in a book store?"

He gave her a look. "No. I'm suggesting our… character people do."

"Oh, I see." She crossed her arms. "And who is your character person?"

"Uh…." His brow scrunched as he thought for a moment. "I'm a—a thief. An elf thief. Thing. That's a type of character, right?"

She laughed. "Thief is a class, yes." She tapped her lip. "Okay. I'll be a bard. Human, to make it simple. But you're supposed to assign yourself stats and backgrounds and—"

"We're both pretty great at stuff," he said with a shrug. "We can skip that for now."

She bit her lip. "Take it away, then."

"Alright, cool." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her close, then waved a hand in front of them to paint a picture. "So we're in a tavern. You're sitting all alone, hungry for love—"

"Oh _please—"_

"Just _listen,"_ he insisted. "You're lonely and horny. I, a stunningly handsome elf, have just gotten back from a job stealing—stealing dwarf artifacts from a temple—"

"Dwarven," she corrected.

"What?"

"It's _dwarven_ artifacts, not dwarf."

"God, that's so hot," he whispered, then continued. "So anyway, I'm pretty loaded, and on the prowl myself. I see you, gorgeous and painfully alone, and walk up to you." He shook the die in his hands and peered into the clear plastic container. "I rolled a twelve. So do we have sex now?"

She shook her head. "No, you have to say something. Introduce yourself. Flirt."

"Like, manually? I thought you just rolled a die." He shook her gently. "Plus I've already done all the flirting and introducing in real life."

She laughed. "Well, we can skip intros for now, then. So what do you say to me? A pick up line?"

He nodded with a grin, and she took the die from him. "Okay, here, I'll roll a persuasion check to see how you do." She rattled the die around and looked down at the result. "Oh. Wow."

"What?"

"You got a two."

"Is that bad?"

She grinned. "That's like a critical fail, Nate."

"Oh. Can I roll again?"

"Nope. You gotta think of a _really_ bad pickup line."

"Hmm." He lapsed into deep thought for a silent moment, staring off into space and all too invested in their extremely casual game of bookstore dungeons and dragons. The longer she waited for him to choose his line, the more afraid she was to hear the answer.

Finally, he brushed his mouth to her ear and whispered: "if you were a booger, I'd pick you."

The hand pressed against her mouth didn't help much; she was giggling _way_ louder than was appropriate in a quiet book store, and felt eyes on them even with her head buried into Nate's shoulder. He laughed into her hair and held her until she got control of her lungs back and wiped at her eyes to brush away tears.

"Oh my _god,_ Nate," she said with a hiccup. "That is— _so_ bad—"

"It's working, though, right?" He was grinning down at her, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"Yes, _totally,"_ she said, a few stray giggles following her words. "Wow. That was—wow. Maybe I should teach you how to play properly. It could be fun."

"Do you dress up and everything?"

"Depends on how serious you are about it." She set the die back down on the display table. "But how about we organise dungeons and dragons _after_ I buy my book?"

He seemed disappointed, but thankfully, _thankfully,_ started walking again, this time straight to the counter. She let out a few more half-swallowed laughs while she followed him. Taking Nate out in public usually extended the trip three-fold, but it was nothing if not entertaining.

They were within arm's reach of the front counter when he spotted a stack of leather journals on a stand by the wall, and then it was all over. He promptly dragged her over with him, humming with excitement, but she was in too good of a mood to complain.

An hour and thirty-six minutes later, they left the store with her book and two expensive leather-bound journals that Nate did _not_ need—and one stone twenty-sided die.


	22. Watercolour

**AN: This was inspired by beltsquid's post on tumblr about Nate and Elena watercolouring together, plus some great convos with tumblr friends about Cassie doodling in Nate's journal. Probably cheesy as hell, but _here it is._**

* * *

He wasn't used to having an audience when he drew, and usually preferred _not_ to have one, but the adoring eyes of his daughter were an exception he thought he could get used to. She had her chair pushed up close against his by the kitchen table, and was crouching on it to watch him sketch.

"What's that?" she asked, poking at the page.

"It's a mandala," he explained, and she frowned at the word. "Or at least, part of one."

"What does it do?"

He struggled to find an easy explanation, toying between accuracy and simplicity. "Well, it can be a lot of things, but this one—it's from a place called Tibet, and in Tibet it represents the world, or the universe, which is like the world but a lot bigger." She'd see a real one soon enough—Elena had only just finished booking another trip to Nepal, and they'd be heading out there in a few weeks. He wondered idly, as he often did, how Tenzin was getting on, and how old Pema must be by now. He also wondered if her and Cassie would get along, and smiled at the thought.

"What's rep-re-sent mean?"

Nate's attention was dragged back to his daughter. He opened his mouth to try and give her a definition, and he quickly began to question his grasp of the English language. "It's like—to stand for something."

Cassie nodded in understanding and looked at the page again. "So the circles you drew stand on the world?"

He chuckled. "No, not exactly. More like they _mean_ the world."

"Oh." She turned to look at one of the maps hanging on the wall and shook her head. "It doesn't look like the world. There's no land."

Nate smiled at her. "It's supposed to symbolise the world," he said. "To show all the colourful things in it, and how big and different it is. That's why it doesn't look like a map."

"What's symbolise mean?"

"It's like represent," he replied slowly, wondering how to break the cycle they seemed to be falling into. "The mandala is a simpler way of showing the world, or universe, even if that's not what it really looks like."

Cassie was apparently satisfied with the answer, because she suddenly jumped up on her chair and stared down at the paper.

"Can I colour it for you?" Cassie braced her palms on the table, tiny fingers spread out on the wood, and looked up at him hopefully with large, brown eyes. He wasn't sure how he could possibly say no.

Elena had said to him once that their daughter must possess some form of arcane magic—a kind of adorable medusa-esque look that, instead of turning people to stone, would bend them to her will. Nate was inclined to believe his wife's supernatural explanation for Cassie's unending ability to convince people to do what she wanted, especially when he was seeing it in action.

"Let me finish drawing it," he reasoned with her. "Then you can colour it; sound like a plan?"

" _Sí,"_ she replied, and he grinned at the casual use of Spanish.

" _Me daré prisa,"_ he said, and looked down at the page to get back to work. Cassie stayed beside him, her chin now resting on her folded arms, and followed the pencil's movement with curious eyes.

* * *

Twenty-seven minutes later, Cassie was stationed at the table, armed with brushes and Elena's water colour paints. Her head was bowed over the drawing, her hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail by her mother in a vain attempt to keep her clean.

"You should just make her a colouring book," Elena said quietly, standing beside Nate in the kitchen and watching their daughter.

He laughed. "Yeah, maybe. She draws enough in my journal as it is."

Elen looped her arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder. "Your sketches are a lot more interesting than generic princesses and races cars, too. She can learn about history _and_ make your journal more colourful."

Nate smiled into her hair. "As long as she doesn't—"

"I'm done!" Cassie jumped off her chair— _she really needed to stop doing that—_ and raced into the kitchen to show her parents. "See?" she said, and pointed to the page. "I made it look like a flower!"

"That was quick," Elena commented, then smiled down at the painting. Runny blues and greens and purples were soaked through the page, following some abstract pattern only Cassie knew the rhythm to. Small multi-hued fingerprints also dotted the edges of the page, like small petals off of her mandala-turned-flower. The detail was unintentional, he was sure, but no less effective. "It looks wonderful, Cass."

A big, toothy grin was her response, and she turned it back around to look at it. "I want to give it to Sully. It looks like the flowers on his shirts."

Nate nodded and extended a hand to grab the page. "Next time we seem him, you can give it to him. Let me hang it up on the fridge for now—"

"I wanna!" she protested, and then padded over to the fridge. She grabbed some of the letter magnets off the front of the door and arranged them at the top of the page until they spelled out Sully's name: _S-u-l-e._

"Now grandpa will know it's for him," Cassie said, hands on her hips and standing back to admire her work. Then she looked over her shoulder at her father, her magic gaze once again at full power. "Can you draw more? I want to make one for Sam now."

He wasn't sure how he could say no this time either, and pulled away from a smiling Elena to head back to the table. "Sure," he promised, and felt painted-coated fingers slip into his palm. He looked down at Cassie and raised a brow. "What do you want this time?"

"A dinosaur," she said, nodding to herself. "Yeah. A big one." She spread her arms out, letting go of his hand for a moment. "This big."

"I'll need more than one page for that," Nate said, frowning and sneaking a glance at his wife, who was biting back a laugh. "I don't think—"

"I can colour them while you draw on other pages!" she insisted, bouncing on her toes.

His hand hurt like hell at by dinner time, and there was water colour covering a good portion of the table and floor around it, but the brontosaurus he drew for his daughter hung taped and painted up on the fridge, just under Sully's mandala-flower, and Cassie was passed out in her chair, paint brush still in hand, so he decided it had been worth it.


	23. Bruises

Nate managed to get his shirt up around his ribs before he started huffing in pain and squirming. Elena watched him struggle with his wet clothes until pity got the best of her and she decided an intervention was required.

"You want help?" she asked, frowning at the tangle of blue Henley wrapped around Nate's arms.

He gave her a grateful look and nodded in defeat, and she grabbed Sully's army knife off the bench.

"Whoa, what—"

"I don't think you can lift your arms over your head to take that off," she explained, moving towards him and trying to brandish the blade in a non-threatening way. "Plus, I think that shirt is done for."

He eyed the knife in her hand for a doubtful moment, then relented with a shrug—which he immediately regretted, judging by the pained look on his face.

"Hold still," she ordered, and began to cut the fabric away from his arms. Without all the blood and the sweat and the rips, it really had been a nice shirt, and he'd looked good in it.… she'd have to buy him a new one.

He watched her cut the shirt away from his skin, trying to hold as still as possible; with the amount of gashes covering his body, Nate was still recovering from a run-in with some kind of blade.

 _Again. Hopefully for the last time._

The shirt finally fell away with her help, and he let his arms fall back to his sides—giving her an unadulterated view of his injuries.

"Jesus, Nate," she whispered, trailing her fingers over the deep purple and red bruises covering most of his upper body, accented by long, thing gashes and deep, short cuts. It was like he had _layers_ of bruises and scrapes on his skin, ranging from weeks old to painfully fresh all piled on top of one another.

"Those are Nadine," he said, pointing to the bruises at his ribs. "Some are from Rafe, some are bullet grazes, or rocks, or…." He trailed off when he saw the look of horror that must have been clear on her face, and his expression softened. "Hey," he murmured, and put a finger under her chin to force her gaze up. His eyes were fiercely blue in the dim light, and stood out especially against the blood and the sunburn covering his face. "I'm okay."

She clenched her jaw and nodded, grabbing a hold of his bicep—one of the few places that wasn't covered in bruises or cuts. "Yeah," she whispered, not really convinced. "Yeah."

"Really," he said, and wrapped an arm around her waist. "I'm okay." She went willingly, pressing her face into his shoulder and bringing her arms up to hug him, as gently as she could manage. She was banged up too, but not nearly as bad as he was.

Her nose skimmed his collarbone, and she drank him in. His skin was tangy with dirt and sweat, but it was _Nate,_ and so very welcome after several long, solitary weeks apart. Even their phone conversations had left her feeling distant—she knew _why_ now, of course, but since they had that cleared up….

"I missed you," she said into his ear, and his arms tightened around her.

"I missed you, 'lena," he responded, and she felt his cheek rest on the top of her head. "God, I missed you so much." She grinned into his skin, and dared to press a kiss against his shoulder.

"You need a shower," she whispered, and felt him vibrate with tired laughter.

"So do you," he whispered back.

Her fingers trailed gentle circles over his shoulder blades, and she hummed low in her throat. "Maybe we can work something out."

He pulled back enough to giver her a surprised look—clearly, he wasn't sure where they stood yet. Truth be told, she wasn't totally clear either, but right now she was tired and feeling the miles between them more than ever, and he was _here_ with his shirt off and looking way too attractive for his own good, bruises and all.

Apparently he'd been doing some appreciative staring of his own, and their eyes met after a silent moment of mutual ogling. "I love you, you know that?" he said finally, giving her a tentative smile, and she smiled back.

"Yeah, I do," she replied, which made him laugh again. Encouraged by her response, he stooped down to press his mouth against hers, and her arms went from his back to wrap around his neck. This kiss was more thorough than their moment in the cave, and a lot less rushed. No stupid brother to rescue, no army to sneak around, no waterfalls or falling rocks to avoid….

Nate's hands found their way to her waist, his fingers playing with the hem of her shirt. _She_ had a gloriously open expanse of skin to content herself with, as long as she kept her touches gentle. The space between them quickly evaporated, and Nate's back was shoved up against the interior of Sully's plane. Her hands wound into his hair, pulling him hard into her, and he groaned into her mouth when her tongue teased at his lips.

"Jesus, you two, a get a room," Sam's voice cut in, sounding indistinct and far away and immediately annoying her. It took her a couple seconds too long to disengage, and she saw that Nate's face mirrored her current mood when she pulled away.

He glared at his brother, who was grinning over the co-pilot seat in the cockpit and actually _eating_ popcorn, probably ancient and dug out from Sully's dashboard.

Nate said something rude-sounding to his brother in Spanish, who replied in kind, but turned around after a smug moment.

Elena took that time to catch her breath, and raised a brow at Nate. "What did you say to him?"

"Told him to mind his own goddamn business," he said, and she laughed. He grinned at her, and skimmed his mouth over hers. She wondered if he'd continue their impromptu makeout session—something she was completely fine with—but Nate reluctantly disengaged when the movement hurt some injured part of his body.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat and putting some space between them before she did something improper. "We _should_ get you a change of clothes." Elena indulged thoughts of Nate stripping down in the cramped space of Sully's plane before sighing and moving over to their bags. Nate followed after her, his hands still skimming her hips and keeping some form of contact between them. She pulled out a sweater and went to hand it to him, then hesitated when she saw how _dirty_ he was.

"Maybe... you should shower before changing," she amended. "I'll get you a blanket instead."

"You know," he began when she turned around to put his sweater back, and she felt him pull her waist snugly against his. "Your clothes are looking pretty dirty too."

She grinned and bit her lip, leaning into him and standing up straight. He immediately snaked an arm around her and pulled her flush to his chest, then grunted when the movement disturbed his bruised ribs. "I'm sure the blanket is big enough for the both of us," she suggested with a raised brow.

"Excellent idea," he whispered into her ear, and she was about to turn around to kiss him again when Sam began mouthing off behind them, and Nate lost focus to argue with his brother over her shoulder instead.

Elena sighed and moved away to dig out an emergency blanket. It wasn't like they could take their post-adrenaline sexual tension anywhere in Sully's prop plane, and intellectually she _knew_ they really needed to talk, but _still_.

Right now, though, she contented herself with snuggling close to Nate on the bench wrapped up in an itchy blanket. He quickly fell asleep, his head resting against hers, and she followed him not long after. The sleep wasn't all that comfortable or restorative, but it was the first time in over a month that she was sleeping with Nate next to her, and that was enough for now.


End file.
